As far as surprises go, it could be in the conversation alongside last weekend's shocking Bradley/Pacquiao fight, albeit minus the controversy shrouding the end result.

And while others around the junior A lacrosse loop took notice of the PoCo Saints' 3-2 win over Coquitlam Wednesday, the Saints themselves were rather ho hum about the whole thing.

Backed by a sterling 48-save performance from netminder Garrett Spann, the Saints chalked up their first win over Coquitlam in almost five years Wednesday, a win that moves the Saints to 6-6 on the season.

"Winning is an attitude," said Saints coach Nick Delmonico. "You can develop a winning or a losing attitude, and in our last few seasons, after a while they started assuming we were going to lose on a regular basis when things weren't going right in a game. We've now put a couple of games together in a row here, so I think the guys are starting to believe in themselves as a group and they're starting to show up to every game expecting to win and not expecting to lose."

The Saints got up 2-0 on Coquitlam in the first off markers from Mitch Cavalarin and Colby Beveridge, before Wesley Berg replied with a pair in the first half of the third to knot the score at 2-2.

Five minutes after Berg tied it up, and with under five minutes left to play, Nash Harrison scored the decisive 3-2 game winner on a PoCo powerplay.

"It felt really good," said Harrison, who leads the Saints in scoring with 23 goals and 17 assists. "I was getting a lot of inside chances in the first and second periods but they weren't really giving me much room. Most of my shots weren't hitting the places where I wanted them to. On that powerplay in the third I was pretty nervous, holding the stick a bit too tight because it was such a close game. I just took a quick shot and luckily it went in for me."

Wednesday's win was PoCo's first defeat of their cross-town rivals since June 22, 2007, a span of close to five seasons and 13 straight losses. In that contest, PoCo prevailed by an 8-5 count.

"We've got some depth on this team now," Delmonico said. "We've got 25 guys signed and 19 of them are back next year, so we're still a fairly young club with some depth we haven't had before. In the past, if I lost one or two guys to injury we were doomed."

As for the Adanacs, Wednesday's game was not without its share of streaks being broken. Not since the 2008 season have the Adanacs lost more than three games in a regular season, let alone consecutive games.

Incidentally, the last time Coquitlam suffered back to back losses came in the 2007 season, when New West trounced Coquitlam 8-0 just three days before the Adanacs lost to PoCo.

With Wednesday's defeat, Coquitlam relinquished its long-standing grip on the league's top spot, as Delta has now taken over first place in the B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League.

"There's no reason to panic," said Coquitlam coach Neil Dinsdale. "We're really happy with the play at one end of the floor. It's a whole process and we knew we would be missing a lot of guys for half the season and that some of them wouldn't be coming back until this weekend. So it's a new season going forward. These guys are good players and they will respond."

Granted, the Adanacs were without top scorers Robert Church, Matthew Dinsdale and Ben McIntosh for Wednesday's game. Those three players combined for 63 goals in last year's regular season.

As for Spann, the Maple Ridge native said Wednesday's big win will serve notice to the rest of the league that the 6-6 club - which combined for only six wins in the past two seasons - is for real.

"We had a good practice on Tuesday night and we all came out ready and focused," he said. "That win gives us more energy, if anything. We know that we can roll with anyone in this league. We knew that before and now everyone knows that."

PoCo's next test comes tonight (Friday), when the Saints host to Langley at 8 p.m. Coquitlam will look to right the ship Saturday against Langley.

sports@thenownews.com