West Bloomfield Hockey Team Routs Bloomfield United

In the last regular season game of their careers, several seniors helped the hockey team clinch second place in the Oakland Activities Association White Division standings.

The 6-2 victory over Bloomfield United Saturday at the Detroit Skating Club broke a four-game losing streak and gave the Lakers 27 points on the season (13-10-1) , just below Oxford High and past United.

Zach Rogow had one goal and two assists to push his season point total to a team-lead 57, while fellow senior forward Dylan Kamen had one goal and two assists. Senior Sam Burke had one assist.

According to George Parkhurst of West Bloomfield, whose son Chris is a senior defenseman, the Lakers were able to defeat United by coming out strong in the first period with two goals by Kamen and junior Nick Mangienello and maintaining that offensive output throughout, which bucked a season-long trend.

“We sometimes come out kind of flat — that’s what hurt us lately — but we’re picking it up tonight,” Parkhurst said during the second period. “We’re not getting as many penalties and we’re playing solid defensively.”

Senior Bryan Cornfield stopped 20 shots on goal for the Lakers, who didn’t allow a goal until the second period, when United put in two goals within the first eight minutes. That’s when, according to coach Jeff Lupo, three juniors stepped up on defense.

Lakers moving on to playoffs

“That was our Charlip-Murphy-Galloway line,” he said, referring to defensemen Jacob and Andrew and forward Chad. “Those guys take a lot of pride in shutting the other team down defensively and our effort was a testament to those three guys tonight.”

According to Dave Murphy, 47, of West Bloomfield, whose son Andrew tallied 28 points on the season, the season was a time of great growth for underclassmen.

“They’ve been experimenting — moving guys around and trying a lot of new stuff. It’s what you want when you have underclassmen,” David Murphy said. “They moved guys around from offense to defense. There’s a bit of tentativeness between moving between line mates, but we’ll be OK If we can make up for the scoring losses.”

The Lakers, who had nine seniors total play their last regular season game, move on to the regional playoffs Monday against Livonia Stevenson. Murphy said that that is a fine result.

“It’s tough when you lose talented seniors. We had some very talented seniors leave us last year. It’s a great accomplishment, second place,” he said.

Lupo, whose Lakers were 11-9-4 before falling to Birmingham Unified in the playoffs in 2010, agreed. It’s huge. “We came into the season not expecting to be where we were. It was a testament to the kids we have in the room. Down to the wire all the way,” he said.