The Peterborough Lakers were missing several key players but that didn’t stop them from pulling off a victory in the Junior A season opener Thursday night. The Lakers defeated the Kitchener-Waterloo Braves 9-7 in a seesaw battle on the road in front of a raucous crowd at the Kinsmen Arena.
Dan Michel opened the scoring for Peterborough followed by a shorthanded marker from Darryl Waud just 1:14 later. Davis Prince responded on the same penalty to put the Braves on the board and break the goose egg. It was back and forth action for the next four minutes until KW would score another powerplay goal while Jeff Swift was in the box for slashing. Connor Cole would strike 1:22 later before Dan Michel popped his second of the game to make it 3-3 at the end of the first period.
The 2nd period started off with a bang with lots of hard hits and great defense from both sides. It was almost 5 minutes before the first goal was scored when Kyle Jackson found the back of the net on a shorthanded tally to put the Braves up by one. Just over a minute later Chris Cloutier buried one down low on Donovan Fleischer to put the Braves up by two. Peterborough came alive after that scoring three unanswered goals to take back the lead once again. Cam Milligan and Jake Withers scored during the span as did Kyle Killen who got his first Junior A goal; a shorthanded beauty. Kyle Jackson would complete the hat trick before the end of the frame and it was 6-6 after two.
The third period was a goaltenders dual as Fleischer and Eric McLaren both stood on their heads. They battled back and forth for almost eight minutes until last year’s league leading scorer Dhane Smith would launch a rocket from the outside past Fleischer. That was the last shot that would go by him though as he shut the door for the rest of the game while making some incredible saves down the stretch.
Cam Milligan and Nick Weiss would add goals less than a minutes apart and Ethan Walker would round out the scoring getting his first Junior A goal to give Peterborough the 9-7 victory and huge win with a skeleton squad. Riley Quinlan, Zac & Josh Currier, Henry Elmhirst, Paxton Larouxn, Kyle Trolley, Mat Gilray and their 2012 leading scorer Zach Herreweyers are all away at school and won’t be able to join the team until late next month. Peterborough looked strong tonight but when these guys all return to the lineup they will be a powerhouse and heavy favourites to win it all this year.
The next game for Peterborough is their home opener on Monday night when they host the St. Catharines Athletics at 8pm; you can listen to the game live on the Lacrosse Radio Network by following the link at the top of the In Lacrosse We Trust homepage.
