The Lithgow Panthers men's premier league hockey team took a 3-1 win over the Orange Wanderers at home on Saturday, June 22, retaining their position on top of the table.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The purple's led early in the first half with two goals by Mitch Thompson, the Wanderers tried their best to fight back with Bailey Ferguson finding the back of the net.
Despite an attempt to turn the match around, an unfortunate penalty in Orange's defence saw Panthers centre half and captain Nic Milne tuck one away.
"That third quarter was a bit tough but we dug deep and came out of it which is always good," Milne said.
He said Panthers had a young side for the match and were coming in a little under strength.
"We had a very young side today we were coming into it [the game] probably under strength but the young blokes held their own, so it's going to be hard for these old blokes to get back into it next week," he said.
Milne said despite a hard game the team gelled together and came out on top.
"We dug deep and came out of it which is always good, it's a team effort," he said.
Standout players for the Panthers were Tom Luchetti and Tom Piggott through the inside forward's roles.
Read more:
"We were missing one of our inside forwards so they had big shoes to fill, they done that quite well," Milne said.
Orange Wanderers captain Logan Dolbel said to go down to Panthers at home was a pretty good result for any team.
"There's a lot of good positives to take away from today's game, our mid field guys are all away this weekend but we picked up a couple of blokes and played with one sub.
"It was pretty hard on the legs, it just got away from us a little bit there at the end but I definitely wouldn't say we were out of the game at all," he said.
Despite another loss, Dolbel said the team played really well and rolled the ball around a lot better.
"Everyone dug deep, it was a lot better result than we've had the last few weeks so for everyone to step up it was really good.
"We haven't had our win yet, we're still working on it," he said.
Next weekend [June 29] the Panthers will take on St Pats in Bathurst in which Milne said, would be a tough game.
Results: LITHGOW PANTHERS 3 (Mitch Thompson 2, Nic Milne 1) def ORANGE WANDERERS 1 (Bailey Ferguson).
While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox from the Lithgow Mercury. To make sure you're up to date with all the news, sign up here.