860 supporters had to
endure a scoreless 30 mins as Lion's goalie Aaron Mallet turned away everything
the Racers could throw at him. But Haringey finally broke the deadlock midway
through the second period when Mason Webster was teed up by Ricky Rutherford
(in photo) and Lee Mercer.
The Racers then doubled
the lead just over a minute later when the red hot Sean Martin scored
unassisted while Haringey were shorthanded.
Haringey made sure in
the final period when Matt Brown was set up by Jack Cooper and Ben Osborne and
Rutherford added an unassisted fourth.
The Lions grabbed a late
consolation goal in the final two minutes, when Vas Fedotovas scored on the
powerplay and denied Haringey goalie Ian Shepherd a 27 shot shutout on his
return from injury.
Racers coach Dan Sampson
says: "We got the job done, but it wasn't us at our best at all. We
battled, though, and got our rewards in the end. Ian Shepherd made some very
important saves and was unlucky not to get what would have been a well deserved
shutout.
"Our discipline was
poor again, which has been a recurring problem this season. We got away with it
against Lee Valley but other teams will use it against us and we can't afford
to take the chance.
"It was great to
play in front of a big crowd again and hopefully that will continue. It was
also great to claim the bragging rights and I hope to see many tough battles
from this derby fixture in the future."
The Racers will now turn
their attention to a must win cup game away at Chelmsford Warriors on Saturday
(March 22nd) and Sampson adds: "We'd love to win the cup and pick up some
silverware in our first season and we know that when we play five on five no
one can touch us. We all need to turn up on Saturday and play to our potential.
"We've had some
good games against Chelmsford already and they are a hardworking, talented
young side. But we set the bar very high for ourselves a couple of weeks back
and we are looking to push that level even higher."
Sam Park
