Thunder take Game 1 over Lakers

Dane Dobbie had four goals and nine points as the Langley Thunder took game one of the Mann Cup against the host Peterborough Lakers at Peterborough Memorial Centre. Gary Ahuja Langley Thunder photo

The Langley Thunder scored early – on their first two shots – and often and now lead the Mann Cup Championship 1-0.

The Thunder scored six times on their first dozen shots – spelling the end of the night for Doug Buchan (the Major Series Lacrosse Most Valuable Player in the playoffs – while their own playoff MVP (Dane Dobbie) had four goals and nine points as Langley won 16-11 in the best-of-seven opener over the Peterborough Lakers at the Peterborough Memorial Centre on Friday night.

Dobbie was not alone in leading the Thunder offence as Curtis Dickson – Langley’s Player of the Game – contributed four goals and eight points while Dylan Kinnear finished with five goals and six points.

“I haven’t scored that many goals in a long time, but every one was assisted … we’ve been doing that all year and I got the benefit from it tonight.” Kinnear said. “Obviously, we have Connor Robinson, Dobbie, Dickson, Church, Scanlan has had a five, six-goal game … I guess it was my turn. But that’s just our offence.”

”Everyone was firing but like I said, it’s just one game.”

During pre-game introductions, Dickson – a former Laker for a few seasons where he helped the team win one of their three consecutive Mann Cups – received cheers and applause, but that was quickly replaced by boos as he scored 55 seconds in on his team’s first shot.

Langley would not get another shot on goal for nearly four minutes, but Robinson was good on his try and it was 2-0 Thunder. Peterborough’s Austin Hasen would get the Lakers on the board with a pair of goals sandwiched around Robinson’s second of the game.

Kinnear would then add a pair and Dickson scored his second before Peterborough closed the period with a pair of goals to make it 6-4. The Lakers would twice get the score to a one-goal game in the middle frame before the Thunder scored six of the next seven to put the game out of reach, leading 13-7 and holding a multi-goal advantage the rest of the way.

Robinson (two goals, four assists) and Robert Church (one goals, four assists) had the other goals while Erik Maas and Chase Scanlan each had three assists with Matt Abbott (two assists) and Trent Kellner (one assist) also finding the scoresheet.

In goal, Frank Scigliano stopped 50 of 61 shots.

The Lakers’ Mark Matthews was his team’s Player of the Game with three goals and seven points while Kiel Matisz had a goal and four assists. Hasen finished with a hat trick, Holden Cattoni had a pair of goals and Shawn Evans (one goal, four assists) and Evan Turner (one goal, two assists) rounded out his team’s scoring. Matt Vinc took over the crease in the first period and finished with 21 saves on 30 shots.

Game two of the series goes Saturday night at 7:00pm.

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