The 99 Major Atom Lakers finished 1-2 on the second leg of a week that saw them play six games in eight days. After a solid effort against the powerful Waterloo Wolves ended in a 3-0 defeat, the Lakers hit the wall in a 7-1 loss to London Green before recovering nicely to win 5-1 in a fantastic effort against the Windsor Spitfires.
On Friday night against Waterloo the Lakers battled hard but fell victim to a strong team, some bad bounces and an inability to put the puck in the net. While the effort was there the Lakers will have to learn to overcome adversity and find ways to win against the top teams in the league in order to advance further into the playoffs. Forwards Mitchell Newson and Justin Beuermann had strong efforts for the Lakers as did defenseman Brett Denny, Ben Derrough and netminder Brock Baier.
Saturday’s game against London started with promise as the Lakers opened the scoring on a beautiful feed from Tanner Hertel to a streaking Will Thibeault and a quick 1-0 lead. The good news ended there, however, as London responded quickly and often and rolled to victory. While the score was much worse then the play on the ice indicated it was still a tough blow for the team to recover from.
On Sunday the boys did just that and proved to be a completely different team as they came out flying against the Spitfires. A combination of a potent balanced offense, strong defensive play and rock solid goaltending showed what the team is capable of and resulted in a convincing victory. Noah Kuno led the way with a goal and three assists, Jacob Rooke and Thibeault each had one goal and one assist while Carter Collinson and Dillon Weinheimer added a single goal. Hertel, Denny, Bradley Kraemer and Kade Landry all added assists while Baier was great in goal having his shutout spoiled with one minute left to play.