After a tough 15-8 loss Sunday against the Brooklin Redman, the Peterborough Lakers (1-1) will look to get back in the win column when they host the Brampton Excelsiors (0-2) Thursday night in a rematch of last week’s season opener. Peterborough destroyed Brampton 14-4 in that one and we will most likely see similar results once again this time around.
The Excelsiors sent a ‘B’ squad to face the Lakers last week which upset quite a few of the 3000 plus fans that attended the game at the Peterborough Memorial Centre. These people pay good money to see top notch lacrosse and for Brampton to send that kind of squad on opening night was a bit of a letdown for the Lakers faithful. There’s a huge rivalry between these two teams and the fans in the Boro love to hate the Excelsiors. Moves like that by their organization just add fuel to the fire and the crowd should be extra fired up for this one.
The Lakers had several superstars step up in their opening night victory over the Brampton Excelsiors including huge games from Jordan MacIntosh and Shawn Evans.
Coming off a stellar NLL season, MacIntosh didn’t miss a beat for Peterborough and was arguably the best player on the floor. He had four goals with three assists and appeared to score at will. The 23 year old fan favourite is one of the best two way players in box lacrosse and he’ll be relied on a lot more as the Lakers veterans start to age. MacIntosh missed Sunday’s game against Brooklin because of NCAA field lacrosse commitments but he’s expected to return to the lineup for Thursday’s game.
Evans, another fan favourite, was the setup man in the season opener and seemed to have eyes in the back of his head as he fed his teammates the ball from every angle. There was a debate after the game amongst fans about who was better on that night, Evans or MacIntosh. Both men made great cases for themselves but Evans definitely added that extra spark that the Lakers needed. He had two goals with eight assists and quarterbacked the Lakers offense all night. He made some sweet feeds including an incredible dish to his brother Scott on the third goal which gave Peterborough a 3-2 lead against and from there they never looked back.
Evans has been extremely busy as of late and didn’t get much of break in between the NLL and MSL seasons. After coming off his best NLL season in which he set a Calgary Roughnecks franchise record with 112 point and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player, Evans went right back to work full time with Nationwide Lacrosse; a camp that he co-founded with Laker teammate Brad Self.
Peterborough has added a ton of local young talent to their roster this year which should help them build for the future. Players like Matt Crough and Robert Hope who are coming up from the Junior A ranks as well as the off season acquisitions of Stephen Hoar and Brock Boyle are really going to help the Lakers this season as they go for the Mann Cup repeat.
Peterborough has far too much talent at both ends of the floor for Brampton to keep up and although we probably won’t see a blowout like we did last week we should see similar results; especially if the Excelsiors choose to send another ‘B’ squad style lineup.
