Mar 05, 2018 | Bruce Schlitt | 666 views
Minor Atom AE's Squeak Out Game 3 Victory In OMHA Semi Finals
The Minor Atom AE's hosted the Oakville Rangers on Monday night in Game 3 of their OMHA semi final series. In another low scoring, one goal game, the Gryphons held on for a 2-1 victory to take a 2-1 series lead in the best of five showdown.
In a series that has pitted two evenly matched teams against each other in three intense games thus far, the first two periods went scoreless as neither team was willing to concede the first goal of the the match. For every save made by Oakville netminder Jack MacDonald, Guelph's goalie Max Lambert was equal to the task.
51 seconds into the third period, Guelph went on the powerplay. 45 seconds into the powerplay, Adrian Tersigni broke out the Guelph zone with a pass to Milan Wilson. Wilson moved the puck over to Matthew Mainprize who hit the Oakville blueline with speed, went wide on the Ranger defenseman and ripped a wrist shot inside the far post for a 1-0 Guelph lead. With 6:29 remaining, Connor Laskoski won a hard fought board battle inside the Guelph blueline and chipped the puck into neutral ice where it was scooped up by Chace Roffel. Roffel worked himself down into the Oakville zone and ripped a shot on net. Roffel's shot was stopped but the rebound lay open and a hustling McKenna Petti following up on the play crashed the net and scooped the puck into the open net for a 2-0 Guelph lead. Shortly after, it was Oakville's turn to go on the powerplay and with 4:29 left, they cashed in to make it a 2-1 game. The remainder of the game Guelph battled to keep the puck out of their zone and away from goalie Max Lambert. The clock finally ticked down and Guelph held on for a victory.
The Gryphons now have a couple days to rest up before Game 4 when they head to Oakville on Thursday.