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| Scott Evans had 3 goals. (Photo: Tim Prothero) |
The Peterborough Lakers won a defensive
battle to knock Brooklin from the ranks of the undefeated, downing
the Redmen 7-4 at home in Major Series Lacrosse play Thursday night.
Scott Evans led the Lakers offence with a hat trick and an assist.
Both goalies—Tyler Carlson for
Peterborough and Zach Higgins for Brooklin—were perfect for
the first 16:48 till Kevin Brownell was finally able to break
the scoreless deadlock for the Redmen. Cory Vitarelli
countered just over a minute later and the teams headed to the first
intermission tied 1-1.
The Evans brothers combined to lead the
Lakers to a strong second period. Scott had 2 goals and an assist and
Shawn a goal and 2 assists as Peterborough outscored Brooklin 4-1 to
take control of the game. Jake Hayes and Mike Triolo
sandwiched goals around Scott's third of the game in the third period
to pull Brooklin within 2 goals at 6-4 at the 7:13 mark.
The Redmen had some chances to get
closer but Carlson and his posts turned aside everything else they
directed at him. Mark Steenhuis finished off the scoring with
an empty-net goal with one second remaining that led to some ill will
in the handshake line, after which Steenhuis and Gavin Prout
were guided away from the floor by the referees.
Scott Evans gave credit to his
teammates for getting him opportunities to play his role. “Shawnie
and Steiner are doing a lot of work and I'm just getting myself open
and into position to score,” Evans said. “I've been doing this a
long time and I know my job is to score goals and I keep getting open
and hopefully I find the back of the net.”
The Lakers squad is starting to gel but
it will take a while for the team to really be cohesive with all the
changes this year, Evans said. “It's going to be up and down, we're
going to have guys coming in and out of the lineup all year long, so
we've just got to battle. If we take care of the little things the
wins will take care of themselves.”
Brooklin Head Coach Wayne Colley
was pleased with his team's effort, especially given they were
shorthanded, dressing three fewer than the allowed number of runners,
but gave credit to Peterborough for earning the win. “We played
well. We had a lot of work commitments tonight and a couple of other
commitments and some injuries so we finished with 15 runners,”
Colley said. “There are some guys missing who would have helped us
a little bit but we're happy with what transpired. It's a learning
curve but it's part of the game of lacrosse. They've got a good squad
on the other side there and they're defending the Mann Cup for a
reason.”
Colley pointed out that his club has a
lot of new faces who are getting used to each other, as well. “I
have 10 new people in my lineup from last season and we ended up in
place last year. I had some injuries at a bad time or we might have
wound up better than 4-0 and knocked out in our first round of the
playoffs. We made changes for the better and there's a reason why I
drafted who I drafted and we're starting to see some of the results.
Once I get all the guys on the same page this season—there's a
bunch of new guys getting to learn each other—we'll be that much
better. So will all the other teams. It's a good, close league.”
Brooklin is off until next Wednesday
when they play host to Brampton. Peterborough faces
Kitchener-Waterloo in the First Capital Cup in Kingston tomorrow
night then heads to Oakville Monday night to play the Rock in a game
that can be seen via live webcast.
