Goliath 1 - David 0

Goliath came out on top by a 6-3 count on Thursday night in Game #1 of the best-of-7 series.  David helped Goliath by being undisciplined. 

There is no doubt that the Victoria Cougars are the decided favorite in the South Division Finals which was launched at the Archie Browning Arena on Thursday.  The Cougars, who will be hosting the BC Junior "B" Championship in early April have built a team that is hardened and ready to compete against the Provinces best Clubs.  The Team boasts eight 20-year-old players in their last year of Junior as well as seven 19-year-old players including the VIJHL leading scorer in Nathan Looysen.  16 Cougars hail from out of the Greater Victoria area and they have all arrived in Victoria for one reason and that is to win a Cyclone Taylor Cup.

The Panthers on the other hand have only one rostered player who resides out of the Victoria area.  Goalie Alex Olson hails from Langley, B.C.  The Panthers are a youth laden squad, a team that has been steadily improving from the first day in September.  "We started this season slowly," explained Pete Zubersky.  "It took our guys a long time to understand the level of play needed to compete in Junior.  At one point in mid-November we had played 22 games and had only 6 wins to show for it.  But we continued to get better and better and ended up in 2nd and then beat the Wolves in our first round.  We lost Game 1 but our group truly  believes this series is a long way from being over and we want to win it."

On Thursday Panthers Justin Post opened the scoring on the power play at the 4:12 mark on a little tip past  Cougars starting netminder Anthony Ciurro.  Ryan Warner and Trevor Owens were awarded helper on the play.  But the lead was short-lived when Cody Hodges knotted the game just a little over a minute later.  An undisciplined penalty hurt the Panthers late in the first frame and the Cougars were availble to pounce on the mistake.  They had several great scoring chances and with the Panthers forward coming out of the box, Cougars Brett Lervold found himself all alone in front of Panthers goaltender Alex Olson and he made no mistake.  There were only 13 seconds left in the period when he scored and the goal gave the Cougars the 2-1 lead and the momentum going into the first intermission.

"The Cougars have a great power play," said Zubersky.  "Their power play is dominant, it is much, much better than one that we can throw out there.  When we take a penalty 200 feet from our net and they score on the power play, it's easy to see that is not how we will find success.  We can compete 5-on-5.  We cannot compete if they are on the power play and tonight we handed them the game."

The Cougars stormed out of the gate in the 2nd stanza however Panthers Garnett Roberts found himself just inside the offensive blueline at the 1:50 mark.  Roberts ripped a high shot that surprised Cuirro and went right to the back of the cage.  Ty Hermsen who was perhaps the best Panthers player on the night and linemate Kai Turner assisted on the marker.  The game went back and forth and was as even as the 2-2 score but penalty issues hit again.  And again the Cougars capitalized, this time at the 15:20 mark when Cody Hodges game the home squad a 3-2 lead.  The Panthers got a power play opportunity of their own only a minute later however Looysen held the puck on the end wall to the left of Olson while three Panthers jammed away for several seconds.  The puck came loose and then suddenly squirted onto Looysen's stick and he made no mistake, coming out front and wrapping a shot around a sprawled Olson.  The goal gave the Cougars a 4-2 lead after forty minutes were in the books.

Hodges scored at the 1:38 mark and it looked like it might be over however the Panthers went on the Power Play and at the 6:43 mark Owens scored on a pass from Cam Thompson to bring the Panthers within in two goals at 5-3.  They had several chances to get within a goal and with just under two minutes to go Olson was yanked for the extra attacker.  But it was all for not as Looysen came out of his own end and made a nifty pass to Dom Kolbins who found himself all alone with nothing but an open net for the insurance marker.

"We are disappointed but have already put this one on the shelf," said Zubersky.  "We knew coming in that for us to win this series it would take six or seven games.  We want to go home on Friday and win that game and make this series a best-of-5.  I thought our kids played well tonight.  We made a huge mistake on the short-handed goal we gave up at the end of the 2nd period and of course they scored into the empty net.  That makes the game a lot closer than 6-3.  It was fun, we will be ready to go tomorrow night."

The Peninsula Panthers and the Victoria Cougars go at in Game 2 Friday night in the friendly confines of the Panorama Recreation Centre and the Panthers will look to even the series.  A large crowd is expected.