Peterborough Lakers Use Strong First Period to Hang On for Win Over Cobourg Kodiaks
The Cobourg Kodiaks lost a hard fought game to the Peterborough Lakers Sunday night in Major Series Lacrosse action. In front of over 1000 fans, the home team fell behind 4-0 early and despite out playing the Lakers, couldn’t find a way to catch up. The final score was 8-4.
The Kodiaks who dropped to 5-3 on the season, had beat the Lakers in Peterborough the last time the two teams met. In net for Cobourg on this night was Kevin Orleman, who was making his eighth consecutive start. At the other end, Mike Poulin was in net for Peterborough. Both goalies play for Georgia Swarm in the National Lacrosse League.
The Lakers jumped to an early two goal lead on goals by Corey Small and Thomas Hoggarth. Both goals came off rebounds. The Kodiaks had many good scoring opportunities in the first period but couldn’t solve Poulin and trailed 4-0 at the end of the first period.
The Kodiaks began the second period with a fast transition game but were still unable to beat Poulin who stopped several breakaways. As the Kodiaks began to run, the Lakers were forced to resort to slashing and holding in an attempt to show them down. This resulted in power play opportunities for Cobourg. Mark Vradenburg finally broke the goose egg when he fired a shot far side to beat Poulin. The shot at the end of two was 6-1
Things got chippy in the third period with Peterborough getting caught taking liberties on the defensive end. The referees did a good job of catching the actions the Lakers were doing to slow down the faster Kodiaks however Cobourg couldn’t capitalize on the power play enough to make them pay. Eventually things boiled over when Lakers player Robert Hope slashed Cobourg’s Ben French. When Kodiaks assistant captain, Mike Triolo stepped in to confront Hope, rookie Justin Lemcke challenged Triolo to fight. Triolo, who is 6’8″ and Lemcke, who is 6’3″ moved to the centre of the floor for the fisticuffs. However, only one punch was landed by Triolo before the two wrestled each other down to the floor.
Cobourg outscored Peterborough in the final frame 3-2 with the final being 8-4.
The next game for the Kodiaks is against Peterborough at the Evinrude arena Thursday at 8pm.
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Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love