The St. Catharines Standard

Thursday July 14, 1966

St. Catharines Athletics came up with one of their best games in recent weeks last night at Haig Bowl but it was still not good enough. A’s dropped their 14^th decision in Ontario Lacrosse Association Senior A play losing a tight 7 – 5 game to Peterborough.

The loss dropped St. Catharines further into the cellar in the five team league while the Pepsi-Petes moved to within one point of Toronto in the race for first place.

The low scoring game was dominated by the spectacular play of the opposing goalies, both making big saves on tough shots.

Bob McCready played one of his better games of the season for Athletics. His fine play helped keep the game close especially in the late stages when St. Catharines started to get leg weary.

At the other end of the court, Petes has Pat Baker in goal. This was Baker’s first game with Peterborough since they gained his rights from Brooklin on a decision by the league executive. Baker starred for the Merchants last year when they advanced to the Mann Cup finals.

A’s gave indications that they might be ready to break out of their losing slump by taking a 3-1 lead in the first period. However the visitors came back to even it at 4-4 going into the final period.

McCready Hurt

McCready suffered a cut over his left eye late in the first period when he stopped a hard shot from Joe Todd on his mask. The teams took their break and the final minute and 21 seconds was played just prior to the second period after McCready has been taped up.

Peterborough’s scoring was well spread out with seven players picking up one goal each. Sharing the scoring were Jim Paterson, Tim O’Grady, Jim Vilneff, John Davis, Jim Gooley, Bob Allan, and Cyril Coombs.

Brian Woods counted two goals for St. Catharines while Art Graham and Brian and Bob Melville got the others.

Both the Melville brothers are still junior age but neither looked out of place in senior company. Bob scored three goals for A’s here Sunday against Toronto while Brian has been one of the top scorers all season with the junior Supertests.

The game was half an hour late getting started as the Peterborough bus did not arrive until after 8:30 p.m. The delay was apparently caused by heavy traffic.

It also evened the score as some of the St. Catharines players were late arriving for the game in Peterborough last Friday.

A total of 56 minutes in penalties were handed out but just over half of these came in the final period. St. Catharines took 35 minutes including a 10-minute misconduct to Doug Smith while Peterborough had 21 minutes.

Both Teams

Both teams drew a five-minute fighting penalty. The only incident in the game came late in the second period when Gooley high-sticked Brian Melville into the boards. A’s playing coach Smith went after Gooley but ended up in a shoving match with Roy Wood. Nothing really serious happened but referees Al Kellogg and Bob Dobie, hoping to keep things under control, sent Smith and Wood off for five minutes each.

Smith also got the game’s only misconduct penalty. He was sent off for high-sticking at 16:08 of the third period and when Peterborough scored two seconds later Smith made an uncomplimentary remark from the penalty box and was promptly assessed an additional 10 minutes.

Petes broke the 4-4 tie in the third period when McCready was caught out of his goal. Davis let a low shot go that beat Smith who tried to cover up for the St. Catharines goalie.

Bob Melville got that one back but Allan got what proved to be the winner at 10:07 with Graham in the penalty box.

Athletics now have a full week layoff before their next game when they play host to Brooklin, Wednesday at Haig Bowl.

Peterborough: Goal, Baker; defence, Gooley (1-0), Anthony (0-1), Wood (0-1), Drummond, Mason; forwards, Todd (0-1), Coombes (1-0), Downer, Allan (1-1), Armour, Vilneff (1-0), Paterson (1-1), Davis (1-3), O’Grady (1-0), Bryne.

St. Catharines: Goal, McCready; defence, Smith, Graham (1-0), Hallet (0-1), Timlock, Thorne; forwards, Doan, Boyd, Allen, Hall, Bob Melville (1-0), Woods (2-1), Howe (0-2), Thomson (0-2), Brian Melville (1-1).

Referees: Bob Dobie, Port Credit and Al Kellogg, Beamsville.

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