The winning streak had ended and the Westwood Sports Pub Devils have been dethroned.
They lost a nailbiter semifinal 7-6 in double-overtime to the Port Moody Express Sunday morning at the B.C. senior C lacrosse provincial championship in Armstrong, and their batteries were drained by the time they stepped on the floor for the bronze-medal game 75 minutes later, losing that game 14-4 to the host Armstrong Shamrocks.
"We were super-tired, we were just gassed after the semifinal," said Devils coach and manager Chris Scott. "We hung in there with Moody."
The semifinal winner for Port Moody came seven minutes into the second sudden-death overtime period, after a 10-minute first overtime went scoreless. Blair Poy's shot trickled through the legs of Devils goalie Steven Brizan.
"It was shot Steve stopped but it had some backspin on it and it went back into the net - it was a greasy one but that's how those games end," said Scott. "We came out of that game with our heads held high. Moody thought they were going to walk all over us. We had our chances and they have a good team. After 43 wins in a row you can't get too upset when you lose a couple of games and we'll come back stronger next year."
Until this weekend, the Devils hadn't lost since the 2013 season. They captured their second-straight Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association championship a month ago, while Port Moody won the Lower Mainland-based West Coast Lacrosse League.
Montgomery Jones, and Matt Rochon each scored two goals, while Danton Nicholson and Scott Anderson scored in the semifinal for the Devils.
Ridge Meadows defeated Armstrong 10-8 in the semifinal and went to on win the senior C championship game 8-6 over Port Moody.
The Devils opened with a 9-8 win over the North Shore Indians, then defeated the Kelowna Raiders 12-5. One other PGSLA team, the BX Pub Bandits, went 0-3 in the round-robin, losing 6-5 to Airdrie/Calgary, 13-4 to Port Moody and 13-4 to Armstrong. The Bandits faced the Ladner Pioneers Sunday for ninth place and lost 10-7.
