10-3 Warriors as the Lakers conclude a horrendous week of lacrosse. Whitby looked very rusty opening 4 minutes. Peterborough had their chances, and an early goal would have made a world of difference, however they could not beat Rick Passfield. Against the run of play Ryan Sharp set up Connor Treacy. That got Whitby going and they took the game to the visitors after that. 3-0 after one, though I would say the Lakers actually outplayed the Warriors slightly.
Ryan Blair had a solid first period but gave up a soft goal to begin the second and was replaced by Craig Robertson. Whitby's best play came the latter half of the period. With Peterborough down and frustrated, the Warriors were all over them. Yet even they had trouble putting the ball into the net. The Lakers nearly went five full periods without a goal but scored late in the session. They instantly notched a second marker. Makes one wonder if one of the many posts Shawn Evans hit had gone in earlier then they might have made a game of it. 7-2 Whitby after two.
In spite of the score, it was good efforts from both teams. Typical of the contest was a play where a loose ball was bouncing out of the Peterborough end and back towards the Whitby goal. Ryan Sorenson was behind two Warriors yet outran both to the ball to earn a breakaway. It should have been the goal of the game but Passfield stopped him.
Early in the third, Mike Hobbins was in close on Passfield. He faked him a couple of times, appeared to have the near post but Passfield took it away at the last second. The ball went straight up to the Peterborough end and Whitby scored. The rest of the period was a dog.
Passfield was obviously the star of the game. Ryan Sharp was easily the best runner as he murdered his former team. One must wonder what has happened to the Laker offence. They only lost two players - Carey and Croswell. Based on what I saw last night, they actually lost five! Hobbins, McIntyre and wasson were all non existent. It was Shawn Evans trying to do it all on his own.
Overall, this would have been a great game if the nets had been six inches wider. Really the kids played well enough to have put in 20-25 goals. I'm sorry but when, halfway through the first period, you realise one team is never going to score enough to make the game competitive then everything you're watching suddenly becomes meaningless. Every loose ball Peterborough ever won, every point blank chance they created meant nothing when you knew they'd hardly ever score. I'm not meaning to take anything away from Passfield but if the nets had been bigger he would have been challenged to play even better. He could have given up ten goals and looked way better than he did. Giving up three goals he made it all look pathetically easy.
Early returns on 2004 Jr.A season: worse than ever!
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