It was a victorious win with a heated first period for the North Central Sylvan Lake Midget A Lakers over the Battle River Knights Friday at the NexSource Centre.
The final score was 7-4 for the Lakers with five of those goals scored within the first period.
The Knights scored two of their overall four goals within the first period as well.
In the first period Lakers players Michael Draeger, Khale Skinner and Hunter Thudium worked together to score the team’s first goal at 19minutes and 16 seconds.
Three minutes later Knight’s players Carter Ortman, Spencer McClements and Chase McClements scored their team’s first goal.
Then at 10 minutes and 58 seconds Lakers players Kieran Bulloch, Trysten Sylvester and Blake Carrick scored their team’s second goal.
Yet again at eight minutes and 16 seconds Knights players Landon Eskra, Luke Alderdice and Spencer McClements scored their team’s second and last goal for the period.
With the score being an even 2-2 and just under eight minutes in the first period, the Lakers’ decided to show their opponents just what they were capable of in scoring three more goals.
At seven minutes and 33 seconds Adam Sylvester, Hunter Thudium and Nick Barkman scored the Lakers’ third goal, followed by Reid Aman,Rhett Scott and Nick Barkman scoring again at five minutes and 53 seconds.
The third goal was a surprised to everyone as it was scored at a mere two seconds before the first period finished.
This is when the audience watched Michael Draeger send the puck flying into the net.
This was a swift goal and like a bird flying into the side of it’s cage, the puck hit the top of the net and then landed on the ice just inside the line to score the final goal of the period.
Making a goal at the last second of the first period was something to rejoice over even though the Lakers were in the lead and would stay in the lead, but they would also deal with numerous penalties during the second and third period.
Both teams started out slow in the first half of the second period. Although both goalies remained on high alert as no goals were scored.
Both teams certainly tried to score goals with the Lakers attempting seven and the Knights attempting 15 but to no prevail.
In the third period, Knights players Carter Ortman, Chase Schatschneider and Gage Nelson scored at 17 minutes and 27 seconds.
The Lakers scored their sixth goal at 11 minutes and 15 seconds by Bailey Nesbitt, and the team’s seventh and final goal was scored by AdamSylvester who swung around the net and scored, assisted by Hunter Thudium at eight minutes and seven seconds.
Lastly, Knights’ players Ty Berrecloth, Dylan Bateman and Spencer McClements scored their fourth and final goal at the last 20 seconds of thethird period.
The Lakers suffered 14 penalties in total, which was double the penalties their opposing team took.
Even with the long list of penalties the Lakers still managed a strong win.
Shawn Skinner, Laker’s coach, commented on how the game went stating he was pleased with the outcome.
“We lost our composure a little bit but our goalie hung in there and kept up in the game,” Skinner said. “We took some bad penalties and wewere short handed most of the second and third period.”
He said the score could have been 5-5, but the goalies worked really hard and saved a lot of the goals.
“Our goalie really helped us get that win for sure,” Skinner said.
He said the boys took a lot of penalties because they were retaliating against the opposing team’s verbal aggression, something the audiencemay not have noticed or heard.
Verbal aggression on the ice between the opposing players isn’t an unusual occurrence, however, if the boys loose their composure, they canbe in for penalties.
“It happens at every game but if you lose your composure you’re short handed,” Skinner said.
The positives of the game were the Lakers coming out with a win and goalie Jaxon Johannson playing one of his best games Skinner said.
reporter@sylvanlakenews.com