Falling behind early cost the Sarnia Sting Saturday night.
The Sting dropped their seventh game in the last eight tries with a 6-3 loss to the Peterborough Petes at the Memorial Centre.
Sarnia is now in third place with 45 points in the OHL West Division.
Peterborough spotted themselves a three-goal lead in the opening period. Cameron Butler scored on the power play at 5:24. This was followed by goals from Shawn Spearing and Ryan Merkley before the eleven-minute mark. Sting goalie Cameron Lamour was pulled after that goal and replaced by Ethan Langevin. Sarnia got two of those goals back before the first intermission. Jacob Perreault scored his 20th goal of the year at 15:29, then came a power play goal from Colton Kammerer.
The sides exchanged a goal in the second period. Franco Sproviero tied the game at three-all for Sarnia at 3:19, but Peterborough regained the lead later in the frame on a goal at 9:36. John Parker-Jones extended the Petes' lead less than three minutes later for a 5-3 lead after 40 minutes of play. Chad Denault added yet another goal for Peterborough soon after that.
There was no scoring in the third period. Sarnia outshot Peterborough 9-7 in the final 20 minutes.
Lamour and Langevin combined for 31 saves in the Sting net. Hunter Jones had 31 stops for Peterborough.
Sarnia's Franco Sproviero said it was tough trailing 3-0 in the opening period. "We came back there, battled back which I thought was really good on us but we can't start the game like that. I thought we had a lot of penalty trouble and obviously our penalty kill wasn't good enough."
Sarnia travels to Mississauga Sunday afternoon.The pregame show starts at 1:30 p.m. on 103.9 FM - 1070 AM CHOK.