Jones leads Lakers to win
Lakers rebound to take Game 1 of MSL final series on the road
OSHWEKEN -- The first period was all Six Nations Chiefs. After that, it was the Adam Jones show.
Jones led the way with four goals as the Peterborough Century 21 Lakers overcame an early deficit to beat the Six Nations Chiefs 10-7 in Game 1 of the best of seven Major Series Lacrosse championship series.
Four different Chiefs beat Evan Kirk in the first 12:18 of the opening period while the Lakers simply couldn’t solve Dillon Ward. Mark Steenhuis finally got Peterborough on the board on a transition breakout with a little over four minutes left in the first.
The Lakers team that came out onto the floor after the first intermission bore little resemblance to the one that had been dominated for 20 minutes.
“(Tracey Kelusky) came in and said we were flat all the way around and especially offensively,” Jones said. “It was a little bit of a gut check time. We didn’t want the game to get away from us. We wanted to make sure that we got the next one to keep us in it, then we got some momentum and fortunately the balls went in for us offensively.”
Jones got that next one, scoring the first goal of the second period at 1:59. Shawn Evans and Holden Cattoni followed with goals in the next minute to even the score and drain some of the excitement from the crowd of 1,075.
After the Chiefs scored the next two goals, Peterborough responded quickly again when Jones and Kyle Buchanan struck just 34 seconds apart. The Lakers defence, meanwhile, was starting to play more cohesively and limit the chances the Chiefs were able to generate. When Ryan Benesch scored slipped an underhand bouncer past Kirk on the power play at 10:51, it gave Six Nations the lead again but proved to be the last time they would score.
Rookie defender Matt Gilray, who has been a standout all season, said he and his mates just needed to sort some things out but they believed they could play well against the Chiefs.
“In the first period we were kind of sitting back, I thought we started a little slow,” Gilray said. “Once we got our feet under us and started bringing the game to them, that’s more our style of defence and I think we just got in the flow of things from then on.”
Gilray pulled out a surfing analogy to explain the groove they got into.
“We started out a little slow but the boys got going, had a lot of energy coming into the second period and we just rode the waves,” Gilray said.
Having won the first game that was moved to the road because of scheduling issues at the Memorial Centre, the Lakers now have a chance to take control of the series with the next two games back in Peterborough.
“Everyone’s excited for the first game of the series so I don’t think it matters where it’s played,” Jones said. “Getting the first one down here, this is a tough place to win. We’ve just got to make sure that we take care of business at home and things will look good.”
Nobody is getting ahead of themselves, though, Jones pointed out, saying, “Short memory, we know what happened last year so we don’t take these wins for granted. We keep pushing forward.”
He is, of course, referring to the Lakers winning the first three games of the finals last year then dropping four straight and seeing the Chiefs go on to win the Mann Cup.
“Everyone’s aware of it. I don’t think there’s any need to bring it up,” Jones said. “It is what it is, it’s over with and we’re focused in on this team.”