Youth Sports Report:

Manatee takes inaugural Lightning Cup

Posted Mar 1, 2010 by Nick Murray

Updated Mar 1, 2010 at 07:12 AM

TAMPA – Manatee’s Paul Lochner and Chase Anderson have been a dynamic duo for the Golden Manatees throughout the Lightning Hockey Conference Central Division regular season, finishing 1-2 in the league’s point scoring race.

On Sunday, against East Lake in the inaugural Lightning Cup at the St. Pete Times Forum, Lochner and Anderson continued that form, Lochner finishing with a hat trick and three assists to earn MVP honors and Anderson tallying a goal and four assists as the Golden Manatees earned a 6-4 victory.

“We’ve known each other since, I don’t know, we were five or six,” Lochner said. “We’ve been playing forever.”

It took a period for the Golden Manatees to get going properly, goals by Mikey Nehls and Nathan Keller giving the Eagles a 2-1 first period lead, but three unanswered goals in the second period put Manatee ahead for good. Lochner scored two of the goals, Alex Grodoski picking up the other, while Anderson assisted on all three.

“We were a little slow getting off, we usually are too,” Golden Manatees coach Phil Atkinson said. “In the second period we picked it up, and away we went.”

Michael Richardson added a fifth for Manatee with a wrist shot into the top right corner from the left circle early in the third period. East Lake tried to rally, Ross Jones scoring on a power play to make the score 5-3, but Anderson’s breakaway goal with 54 seconds remaining capped the victory for Manatee.

East Lake had defeated Gaither/Sickles late on Friday night to earn its place in the game, winning the Lightning Conference Western Division, and Coach Jim Anna said he thought his sides lost its legs as the game wore on. The Eagles will now work towards finding success at the Pure Division state championship later this month, something Eagles coach Paul Anna said the team was looking forward to.

“We’ll just continue to run our regular practices,” Anna said. “We’re hoping to bring back our fourth state championship.”

Manatee, which includes players from around the county, will play in the Combined Division state championship, to will be held at the Tampa Bay Skating Academy in three weeks. Atkinson said he hoped winning against East Lake would allow his side to continue its momentum into the Central Division playoffs and the state tournament.

“For me, this is almost like a state championship in itself,” Atkinson said. “We’re a combined team, they’re a pure team, so it’s kind of cool that we won it like this. Next week we play Jesuit first, and then the winner plays Newsome or Wharton, and then we have the state on the 19th through the 21st, so this was important to get the boys all going.”