Eagles outlast Milford in 2-1 victory

HARTLAND - The Lakeland High hockey team bested its rivals from Milford on a snowy, blustery night in a game that might as well have been played outdoors.

Lakeland started slow but played well down the stretch for a 2-1 victory. The victory secured the resting place of the Barber's Cup at Lakeland High once again.

Lakeland (5-5-3) controled the play for much of the latter half of the game even though Milford looked motivated and took over early. The Eagles ended the game outshooting Milford 28-25 in what was an even matchup throughout.

“It's a rivalry game, so it brings out a lot of emotion in the guys,” said Lakeland head coach Tim Ronayne. “I feel that we didn't have our best first period, but we continued to get better as the game went along. I'm still trying to teach these guys to give effort at all times.”

The Eagles started off slow as Milford opened the scoring in the first period. Milford limited the Eagles to only two shots the entire period. Also, two team suspensions forced Ronayne into some double shifting all night.

“We started off pretty slow, and we've had that problem this year. We went back into the locker room after the first period and we improved,” said Lakeland senior captain Kyle Zunich. “Even though our second period was pretty good, our third period was our best.”

After a sluggish first period, the Eagles started showing signs of life. It started with junior forward Anthony Kobak's goal off of a rebound that tied the game at one with 7:51 left in the second period. Kobak's goal was assisted by Zunich and senior defenseman and team captain Jordan Blanzy.

“I usually tell the guys what went wrong, and sometimes I yell at them,” said Zunich. “Depending on how well the player can take the criticism, they usually use that as motivation. We just talked about what we needed to improve on. I guess that created a spark.”

About five minutes into the third period, Zunich's goal sealed the win for the Eagles. As Lakeland locked down defensively, it benefited from stellar goaltending by junior Mitch Leist who finished with 24 saves.

Ronayne spoke briefly about how important this rivalry means to both schools and how both teams are so familiar with each other.

“It's all about bragging rights, bragging rights between rivals and also as friends," he said. "Our guys know how important beating Milford is to Lakeland.

“The players know each other, it's a lot of fun and it's always aggressive. I know  (Milford head) coach Gary Hamilton well so that makes it even better.”

Lakeland's top perfomers were Zunich with one goal and an assist, Blanzy with two assists, and Kobak with one goal. Junior defenseman Ryan Biondo added an assist. 

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