The visiting team has won every game so far in the Capital Junior B Hockey League series between the St. Albert Merchants and Wetaskiwin Icemen.
The Icemen lead the best-of-seven semifinal 2-1 after victories of 5-4 last Wednesday and 4-3 Sunday in St. Albert.
The Merchants tied it up Friday with a 5-4 decision in game two in Wetaskiwin. Mike Roeleveld sniped the winner on the power play with 1:24 left in regulation time.
Affiliate player Ryker Moreau made it 1-1 early in the first and consecutive markers by Casey Reid, Ryan Harrison and enforcer Taylor Wiebe before the middle period ended put the Merchants on top 4-3.
Justin Pawlenchuk went the distance in Merchants net.
In game three at Akinsdale Arena, the first of two goals by A.J. Yariwon opened the scoring in the second. His unassisted effort in the third cut the deficit to a goal.
Ninety seconds after the Icemen went ahead 4-2 on the power play, Roeleveld replied with his fifth goal and team-leading 13th playoff point with the man advantage with 10 minutes to play.
The Icemen were 2-for-4 on the power play after going 2-for-6 in game two.
Pawlenchuk (6-4, 3.08 GAA in 604 minutes) started his 10th straight playoff game.
Game four goes tonight at 8 p.m. in Wetaskiwin and game five is 8 p.m. Friday in St. Albert.
If needed, game six is 2 p.m. Sunday in Wetaskiwin and game seven is 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in St. Albert.
The winner will face-off against the Sherwood Park Knights or the North Edmonton Red Wings in the best-of-five Founders Cup championship.
The two finalists qualify for the April 4 to 7 provincials in Wainwright.
In league play the Merchants (22-12-4) placed third in the west and the Icemen (25-12-1) were second in the east.
The Icemen swept the season series 4-3 in overtime at home and 6-4 in St. Albert.
The St. Albert Skyhawks dug a hole they couldn’t climb out of in Saturday's 3A provincial qualifier in high school men's basketball.
In the Edmonton zone B final at the SkyDome, the home team faced an uphill battle after falling behind by 10 points to the Leduc Tigers in the first period and trailed 38-29 at halftime.
The Tigers showed no signs of slowing down while maintaining leads of between eight to 12 points until the Skyhawks whittled it down to a three-point game on Dayn Scaber's three-pointer with 1:14 to play.
After the Tigers made one of two free throws, the teams went back and forth without scoring as the Skyhawks missed some long shot attempts and the Tigers were unsuccessful on five free throws until they struck from the line to make it 69-64 with 14.4 on the clock.
The Skyhawks emerged from a timeout to pull within two on Ben Crother’s third three-pointer of the game with 2.8 remaining.
The Tigers went on to hit two free throws with 1.9 left to ice it at 71-67.
In the first half the Tigers nailed three of their four three-pointers in the opening quarter, en route to six in total.
The Skyhawks dropped five three pointers, including a three by Crothers in the last minute of the first half to bridge the gap to five points of the leaders.
Cam Vilcsak led the Skyhawks with 15 points and Brendan Thera-Plamondon sank 12. Both Grade 12 players tacked up nine apiece in the second half. Vilcsak's three-pointer with 6:04 left in the third quarter cut the lead to eight at 36-44.
The loss marked the last game for eight graduating Skyhawks from last year’s fifth-place showing at provincials.
This year the Skyhawks finished 20-15 overall after going 21-17 in their first provincial appearance in 15 years.
Thursday the Skyhawks lost the zone A final 79-78 to the host Edmonton Christian Lions, who scored the winning basket with 11.4 to play.
In the final 3A rankings the Edmonton public league Lions were fourth, followed by the Skyhawks at seventh and the Lions at eighth.
Going into Saturday’s showdown the Skyhawks were 3-1 against the Lions, with two of the wins in the metro Edmonton premier conference. In league play the Skyhawks finished 5-6 and the Tigers were 2-9.
The St. Albert Flyers repeated as the North Cup playoff winners in the Alberta Minor Midget AAA Hockey League in dramatic fashion Sunday in Camrose.
Affiliate defenceman Josh Mahura fired the winner at 5:32 in the second overtime period to lift the Flyers past the Sherwood Park Squires 4-3 in the final.
Josh Perrott and Brendan Bow assisted on the goal by the captain of the bantam AAA St. Albert Sabres.
Dylan Overdyk, Tristen Gavin and Ethan Lazaro scored in regulation time. There was no scoring in the third period. Shots were 46-41 for the Flyers, the first-place 21-6-5 team in the north division. In net was Pat Dea, 2-0-2 with a 1.65 GAA and .947 seven percentage in the North Cup playoffs.
In the semifinals Flyers prevailed in overtime on Cam Mazur’s goal to edge the KC Centennials 4-3. Mark Matsuba assisted on the winner at 7:43 in the second sudden-death period.
Matt Quartel scored the equalizer early in the third.
Thomas Friesen and affiliate forward Ryan Cox of the Sabres connected in the first.
The Flyers were outshot 42-38. Dea was between the pipes.
The tournament featured two pools of four teams each and the top two finishers in both pools made the semifinals.
The Flyers and Lloydminster Rage tied for first place in pool A at 1-0-2.
The Flyers blanked the Leduc Oil Kings 4-0, as Dea turned aside 23 shots, and skated to draws of 2-2 against the Camrose Vikings and 1-1 against Lloydminster.
Friesen and Mahura led the team in points with five apiece in the North Cup.
The Flyers are 17-1-3 in their last 21 games going into provincials next week at the Terwillegar Recreational Centre and Bill Hunter Arena.
Last year the Flyers finished third at provincials.
