Phantoms top after turning on the style - Phantoms 9 Scimitars 1
PHANTOMS 9 SHEFFIELD SCIMITARS 1
PHANTOMS 9
SHEFFIELD SCIMITARS 1English Premier League
PHANTOMS turned on the style last night as they roared back to the top of the English Premier League.
Colin Patterson's title-chasers ran riot against Sheffield Scimitars at the Peterborough Arena with both Brent Gough and Nathan Rempel hitting hat-tricks.
Joe Miller also continued his scoring streak while skipper Lewis Buckman and James Hutchinson both lit the lamp as the goals flowed like wine at the Peterborough Arena.
Not that sorry Scimitars found another vintage Phantoms performance to their taste as they choked up nine goals to add to the eight conceded on their last visit to Bretton HQ.
The Yorkshire side were once more outclassed by the league's top scorers, whose latest feeding frenzy takes their season's tally to a staggering 212 goals for the season.
Patterson said: "To win championships you need to be able to cope with the kind of situation we were under last night and the guys came through it in style. They were all excellent.
"A performance like this gives us a lot of belief that we have a great chance to go on and win this thing.
"There are some big battles to come but we are top of the league again which is huge and we are ready to fight all the way to try and land that trophy."
And in the first period at least Patterson's side looked like they had a battle on their hands against the Scimitars who came into this game on the back of a win against Guildford Flames on Sunday.
After taking the lead through Gough's early strike, Phantoms were made to work hard for openings against a defence expertly marshalled by Sheffield's vastly experienced player coach Ron Shudra.
At the other end Joakim Millqvist made a nuisance of himself, three times forcing Stephen Wall into smart saves while one effort slammed into the upright with the Geordie well beaten.
But after the restart the pattern of the game suddenly changed as Phantoms upped their tempo in search of the goals needed to kill the game.
They didn't have to wait long.Just two minutes into the second period Hutchinson crunched a howitzer of a shot from the blue line past Scims' netminder Paul Jones to usher in a period of total one-way traffic.
With all the play heading in the same direction, Hutchinson then turned provider, feeding Miller at the far post to make it 3-0 before Gough finished off at the back post to complete a wonderful passing move involving the Welshman and line-mate Peacock.
And with their opponents so badly wounded it was only a matter of time before the league's most lethal predator stepped up to take his share.
There is no better marksman in the EPL right now than Nathan Rempel and the Canadian sniper underlined his class once again with part one of his hat-trick by dummying Jones before backhanding home his 45th goal of the season.
Three minutes later number 46 flew in when Rempel finished off a lightning Phantoms break away with a typically ruthless finish.
Speaking of Lightning, after staying just long enough to see Wall pull off the save of the season to deny Matt Turner, the sorry band of Milton Keynes fans who had infiltrated the away support began to drift away.
Doubtless they we hoping Scims could do their team a favour, but Shudra's goal past Euan King (who had come on to replace Wall in the third period) was never going to be anymore than consolation .
But Phantoms were in no mood to console anyone and it was Buckman who continued the rout when slotting home after Morgan's fierce shot came back off a post before Gough and Rempel completed their hat-tricks to wrap things up in style.
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Weather for Peterborough
Monday 15 March 2010
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 2 C - 8 C
Wind Speed: 14 Knots
Wind direction: North west
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Sunny spells
Temperature: 2 C - 10 C
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