After eliminating the Ancaster Avalanche four games to one, the next phase of the GOJHL playoffs began Wednesday night at the Haldimand Centre Arena with the Caledonia Pro-Fit Corvairs taking on a familiar postseason opponent in the St. Catharines Falcons.
The series moves to the Jack Gatecliff/Rex Stimers Arena in St. Kitts for Friday, March 27th, also at 7:30 for game #2. Then the teams return to Caledonia on Saturday, for the third game of the best of seven. Game #4 is set for St. Kitts on Sunday for a 7 pm start. Elmira and Stratford are playing in the other round.
These same two teams met at this same time last year with Caledonia coming out on top, four games to one.
Last year’s Sutherland Cup Champs, the Corvairs, have had success again this year in running all four lines, which is a luxury most other franchises do not have. All lines have been producing points and there is no reason to believe coach Mike Bullard will change that facing the Falcons.
Last Tuesday night in Ancaster, the Avalanche put up their best effort of the series against the Caledonia Pro-Fit Corvairs and were rewarded with a 5-3 win after falling behind 2-0 in games last weekend.
That would prove to be their swan song as the Corvairs ended the season for the Av’s Thursday night, at the Haldimand Centre with a 3-2 win.
Thursday night wasn’t as closely played as the score would indicate, thanks to stellar goaltending by Ancaster netminder Blake Richard who faced 39 shot while Kevin Entmaa was called upon 23 times.
Blake Luscombe capitalized on an Ancaster powerplay at 4:34 of the first, but Corvairs’ Cosimo Fontana evened the score by the end of the period with assistance from Nathan Gomes and Luke Sinclair.
Matthew Hore scored his 14th goal of the playoffs and 25th point at 16:47 of the second period, from Tyler Lepore and Erick Delaurentis in the second, before Cole Nagy tied the game at 2-2 at 8:13.
Gomes drew a cross checking penalty midway through the third, which could have produced the game winner, but instead, Connor Bramwell netted a short hander at 9:48 and Entmaa held his ground the rest of the way for the series win.
Heading into the series, Caledonia’s Matthew Hore leads the league in points with 14 goals and 11 assists for 25 points in nine playoff starts. St Catharines’ Tyler Morrison is second with 4 goals and 16 assists for 20 points in 10 playoff games to date.
The tandem of Kevin Entmaa and Marc Sinclair in goal with numbers slightly better than St Catharines goaltending duo of Ben Csiernik and Jonathan D’Ilario.
