MATCH REPORT | RAIDERS HOLD ON TO CLAIM THE POINTS

The WALDECK Peterborough Phantoms travelled to Romford on Sunday to challenge the Raiders for two points, hoping to make it a five-point week.

Not wanting to waste any time, Brad Bowering and Janne Laakkonen linked up, as Brad shot at Raiders goalie Ethan James, Laakkonen was in position to tap the puck in, James managed to kick the puck away - seconds later Duncan Speirs and Austin Mitchell-King emulated this but similarly James saved this attempt. Equally, the Raiders wanted to get themselves on the scoresheet first, with Tjay Anderson, Jake Sylvester and Joe Tomalin all taking shots at Phantoms goalie Hayden Lavigne.

Mitchell-King opened the scoring for the game as he skated from the Phantoms’ zone towards James, winding his stick up and rocketing one past the goalie. Tjay Anderson made a controversial first goal for the Raiders as Lavigne was tangled up with a Raiders player, after discussions between officials and Phantoms alternate captains, the officials confirmed the goal.

Not willing to let the game go, Laakkonen found his chance to pass to Cam Hough in front of James, after drawing out the goalie he scored in the open space. Andrew Shewfelt and Anderson made separate responses adding two to the Raiders score.

In the first half of the second period, the Raiders put two more pucks behind Lavigne, in the forms of Adam Laishram and Sylvester - after the Raiders' fifth goal Head Coach Slava Koulikov called a timeout to plan a retaliation, this timeout proved successful as Luke Ferrara and Hough linked up to wind their sticks up at James, but it was Speirs who bridged the gap between both teams goals. The Phantoms pressured the Raiders as they pushed for another goal; Joe Gretton found himself on the receiving end of James’ fury as James cross-checked Gretton, leading to handbags. Elliott Dewey and George Norcliffe both ascended on Nathan Salem after he tried to get the puck away from James.

The remainder of the period consisted of each team trading goals, Harvey Briggs and Sylvester (x2) entered three into Lavigne’s net - Bowering was patrolling behind James’ net waiting for one of his teammates to be in a position to get the better of James, Bowering made a quick pass to Richard Hartmann who shot at the goalie and the puck bounced off James’ back and into the goal, Hough found another opportunity to score for the Phantoms.

Entering period three, the Raiders were ahead 8-5, the Phantoms managed to close this to 8-6 when Laakkonen shot a puck past James. With only a two-goal gap, the game became gritty with both teams exchanging aggressive boarding hits on each other, Briggs and Bowering became not fond of each other as they exchanged boarding hits, slashing hits and Briggs cross-checked Bowering, additionally, Brandon Ayliffe cross-checked Nojus Venskutonis into the boards, but the officials called no penalties for either side.

In the last two minutes, Phantoms pulled Lavigne to provide an extra skater to try to take the game to overtime, the Raiders didn’t let this scare them as Ayliffe took multiple attempts to score in the empty net but shot too wide; Bowering and Norton defended Lavigne’s goal in his absence as the Raiders still pursued, Shewfelt was able to close the game with an empty net goal.