Mar 26, 2013 | ngaylor | 890 views
Minor Atoms Lead Final Series With 4 Points
Written by Chris Holloway
The HP Lakers Minor Atoms opened their Alliance Playoff Final series against Brantford this past weekend with a pair of convincing wins.
Saturday afternoon in Stratford even though the Lakers dominated play in the 1st period, they spotted Brantford a 2-0 lead. However, we scored the next 4 goals to erase and erased any thought Brantford had of taking game one. Camden Daigle got the charge started early in the 2nd when he banged in a rebound off a Tanner Dietz shot. Then Patrick Holloway converted a rebound on the PP off a Brady Ballantyne shot. Luke Gaylor also drew an assist on the play with the initial pass to Bally.
With the game knotted at 2s heading to the 3rd period the Lakers had no thought of letting up and Jackson McLlwain scored early in the 3rd from Sam Sedley and Maverick Mulder to give HP their first lead of the game. Then Daigle, with his 2nd of the game, roofed one off a Holloway feed in what proved to be the game winner to make it 4-2. Brantford would close to 4-3 on the PP with 5 minutes to go but Gaylor scored from McLlwain and Ballantyne with 3 minutes to go and put the game out of reach and a final score of 5-3.
Kyle Powers was solid in net and earned the win after a brief stay on the injured list. Luke deVries was a force down low consistently shutting down the Brantford attack and earned the Laker chain with his strong-willed play.
That set the scene for a Sunday game in Brantford that started eerily similar to Saturdays game. Once again Brantford opened up with a 2-0 lead after the first period. But the Laker juggernaut proved far too strong on this day as our boys scored the next 5 goals for a 5-2 win.
Cole Melady got things started with a rebound goal assisted by Dietz and defenseman Jack Stecho. Then Dietz scored on the PP from deVries and Logan Harmer and before period 2 ended Ballantyne went shelf when he scored the game winner from his knees with 2 defenders on his back. Clever centre Luke Gaylor had the helper.
With the 3-2 lead heading into the final period the young Lakers were not content yet and Daigle added some insurance from Devo and finally Bally, with his 2nd of the afternoon, into an empty net from Gaylor and Sammy Sedley iced the victory for the visitors. The defensive pairing of Wade Robinson and Jordan Moulton were strong and handled the bigger Brantford forwards with speed and precise outlet passes. For his efforts Moulton earned the Laker chain, while Aaron Waugh earned another playoff victory to his mantle and was a steadying prescence for his club all game.
Game 3 goes Thursday March 28 7:00pm at home in Milverton.