By / Ryan Laverty
It was a little less Blair Witch Project, a little more Friday The 13th, but by all accounts the Southside Athletic Club Southgate Lions did catch a little scare from the Sherwood Park Flyers in the opening round of the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League playoffs.
With a 27-3-3 regular-season record, the first-place Lions had more than double the wins of the Nitro North Division’s fourth-place Flyers.
But like any good cliché will tell you, regular season doesn’t matter in the playoffs, and the Flyers did their best to pull off the upset.
In the end, the Lions took the best-of-three series with wins of 6-4 and 7-6.
“We went into the series expecting to win and get through to the second round. Nothing less than that,” explained Flyers head coach Adam Kelly. “We figured if we limited our mistakes, we could give ourselves a chance to win.”
The Flyers not only limited their mistakes, but they did more than their fair share of scoring as well. With 10 goals in two games, Kelly said his crew did as much as they could have to pull off the upset.
“I don’t think we really made many mistakes at all, but they have so many one-shot scorers, so much fire power that they took advantage of the ones we did make,” said Kelly. “But our guys just kept coming back. They never gave up, so I’m happy with how we did. We have no regrets.”
The Lions will take on the St. Albert Sabres in the second round of the playoffs. The Sabres edged out MLAC 2-1 in their best-of-three opening round series.
In the other North semifinal, the PAC Timberwolves will take on the Lloydminster Heat. The Timberwolves swept Leduc in their playoff opener, while Lloydminster took down the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers in two straight. |
