It was a historic night for Lakehead hockey as Captain Joel Scherban scored his record breaking 98th goal to help give his team a 4-0 win over the No. 9 Waterloo Warriors. However, it was the offensive play of d-man Mike Jacobsen and the goaltending of Grant McCune that proved key in the Lakehead win. Jacobsen scored two beautiful goals while McCune notched his first shutout of the season; turning aside 29 Waterloo shots. Scherbans 98th goal gave him sole possession of the all time Lakehead goal scoring mark previously shared by himself and Larry Zulianello who played for the Lakehead Norwesters in the 1970s.
Lakeheads other goal came from Mark Robinson while Mike Wehrstedt made an impressive return to the lineup after a long injury absence and added two assists. Lakehead outshot Waterloo 38-29 on the night. Waterloo goaltender Curtis Darling also made quite a few good stops and turned aside 35 Lakehead shots. Both teams were ineffective on the powerplay as Lakehead went 0-6 while Waterloo was 0-9.
The win puts Lakeheads OUA record at 9-6-2 (13-12-4 overall) and brings them within three points of Waterloo (10-4-3 OUA/15-8-3 overall) in the OUA Far West Division.
Lakehead had the edge in play in the first and Jacobsen scored his first at 12:07 after beating Darling with a nice fake and converting a nice passing play from Shandor Alphonso and Murray Magill. Jeff Richards was aggressive in the first, and through the game for Lakehead, and came close a couple times. Waterloo had some good chances and hit two posts and one crossbar. The period also saw the Wolves Scherban awarded a penalty shot but Darling denied the Lakehead captain his 98th goal with a fine save. Lakehead outshot Waterloo 14-7 in the first.
The second was a little ragged but then Waterloo had a few dangerous spurts that required Lakeheads McCune to be sharp in goal. Waterloos Sean Roche had the best opportunity when he had a shorthanded breakaway but was denied by two fine saves by McCune. The Warriors had one final spurt at the end of the period but McCune kept the puck out. Although Waterloo had the more dangerous chances and the edge in play; Lakehead outshot them 12-11 in the second.
The final period was slow for the first 10 minutes but Lakeheads offense finally found its way as Jacobsen scored his second of the night at 14:11 when he burst in on Darling and beat him high glove side. The assists went to Wehrstedt and Andrew Brown. Scherban got his record setting tally at 18:47, converting some hard work from Brad Priestlay and Dan Speer. The crowd of 2783 chanted Scherbans name in appreciation of his five years of excellent play for Lakehead. The Wolves took a minor with less than a minute left and Waterloo pulled Darling but Lakeheads Wehrstedt intercepted the loose puck in the Wolves end and fed the puck up to Mark Robinson who fired a shot from centre ice that found the empty net at 19:50 to ice the game. Shots in the third were 12-11 Lakehead and 38-29 on the game.
The Three Stars, as chosen by Dave Trifunov of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal, were:
1)Lakehead : Joel Scherban
2)Lakehead: Mike Jacobsen
3)Lakehead: Grant McCune
The two teams take to the ice again Saturday night at 7:30 pm EST at the Fort William Gardens and the game can be seen on videowebcast live pay-per-view and you can order by going to http://www.news-cast.com/events/index.html.