by Stephen Dafoe
It was a knuckle biter Saturday night when the Morinville Senior AA Kings took to the road to face the Bonnyville Pontiacs in game four of a best-of-five opening NCHL playoff series.
After stomping on the Pontiacs with a 17-1 win at home, and trailing 2-1 in the series, the pressure was on the Pontiacs Saturday night to push it to a fifth-and-deciding game in Morinville Sunday afternoon.
Bonnyville was determined to ensure that outcome and lead the Kings 3-1 heading into the middle frame, but the Kings came back with a pair of unanswered goals in the second to tie the game 3-3.
Tom Brennan and Kyle Plett pushed the Kings to a 5-3 lead with 15:57 left in the game, but the Pontiacs pocketed another pair in the remaining window. Denis Cadrin scored the tying goal with 11 seconds left in the game, driving the contest to overtime.
But 45 seconds into overtime, Matt Filice, assisted by Jordan Pelletier got the one the Kings needed to take the series.
In other playoff series, both the Fort Saskatchewan Chiefs and Red Deer Rustlers took their respective series in three straight, and the Daysland Northstars won their series in the fifth game.
The semi-final series, also a best-of-five series, will see the Morinville Kings face the Red Deer Rustlers, 10-6-0 in the regular season. Fort Saskatchewan will face the Daysland Northstars. The winners of those two series will move on to the Championship best-of-five series.
Game times for the semi-finals are yet to be announced. Morinville News will bring an update when that information is available.
