Bomberry nets OT winner in comback over BLC

 

 

By Sam Laskaris
A major penalty proved to be rather costly for the Brooklin Lacrosse Club in its home opener on Wednesday.
Brooklin was leading the visiting Six Nations Chiefs 10-7 with just under 10 minutes remaining in the third period of the Major Series Lacrosse (MSL) contest staged at the Iroquois Park Sports Centre in Whitby.
Brooklin’s Adam Perrorni, however, was then given a five-minute major and tossed from the game after a head check delivered against Chiefs’ star Austin Staats.
That infraction came as Brooklin was already going to be assessed another minor penalty.
The Chiefs got power-play goals from Randy Staats, Cody Jamieson, and Austin Staats, before Brendan Bomberry netted the winner in overtime, to eke out an 11-10 decision.
“It was a discipline issue which reared its ugly head,” Brooklin head coach Jason Crosbie said of his team blowing a three-goal lead. “You can’t do anything after the fact. You’ve just got to try to hold on.”
The Brooklin squad was not able to do that.
“You can’t give them a 5-on-3 with that amount of firepower they have on that team, which is a lot,” Crosbie said. “It was just an undisciplined play. You’ve got to be better. You’ve got to be smarter. And you have to be more cognizant of what’s going on in the game.”
For the most part, however, Crosbie added he was pleased with the efforts from his charges against the perennially tough Chiefs.
“All in all I think we played well,” he said. “We had a bunch of chances at the end and wide open looks in overtime. We could have easily won that game.”
Ryan Lanchbury, who netted a hat trick for Brooklin, echoed Crosbie’s sentiment about the fact the host squad could take away several positives from the match.
“We showed a lot of good efforts tonight and over-all it was a good game,” said Lanchbury, who joined the Brooklin squad after obtaining a one-year release from the Oakville Rock, a franchise which opted to sit out the 2022 MSL campaign. “Yeah, we gave them a little bit of breathing room there to get back. But I think there’s a lot of good to take away from this.”
Lanchbury added the Brooklin side needs to better maintain its composure – and not just in terms of taking penalties.
“All over the floor we need to be a bit more disciplined and a little cleaner with the ball,” he said. “We’re a young team and there’s a lot of learning experiences from that game and we can take away a lot of good.”
The Chiefs arrived in Whitby having also played Tuesday night, when they eked out an 11-10 victory against the visiting Peterborough Lakers.
Lanchbury was hoping the Six Nations side would display some signs of fatigue and that his club would be able to take advantage of that.
“We’re a young team too so I think we’ve got a lot of legs,” he said. “Especially after last night we should have ran them a bit more than we did at times. I think we could have done a bit more on O and D but it was a hot one tonight and we’re tired out there too.”
Like Lanchbury, Brady Kearnan also scored a hat trick for Brooklin on Wednesday.
Singles were provided by Jacob Sanders, Austin Murphy and Payton Cormier.
Jerry Staats added two goals, while Bomberry, Jamieson, Austin Staats also had two-goal games. Vaughn Harris, and newly acquired Joey Cupido pitched in with one goal each for the Chiefs.

NOTES: Warren Hill got the win between the Chiefs pipes, making 50 saves, while Riley Hutchcraft was outstanding in goal for BLC. He made 60 stops. The Chiefs now sit at 3-0 and take on the Cobourg Kodiaks on the road Sunday at 6pm. BLC is 1-2 and head to Peterborough on Thursday to take on the Lakers at 8pm.