DIDSBURY - The Mountain View Colts' Heritage League north final series against the Airdrie Thunder is now a best-of-three match-up, with each team winning twice last week.
After falling 6-1 in Airdrie in Game 1 on March 5, the Colts won two games in a row, 7-5 at home on March 6 and 3-2 in overtime in Airdrie on Friday, to take a 2-1 series lead. The Thunder then tied the series at 2-2 with a resounding 5-1 win Saturday in Didsbury.
"We came off that emotional seven game series against Red Deer and didn't come out and have our strongest start in Game 1 in Airdrie," said head coach Rob Turville. "I think they came out and scored six goals in the first 12 minutes of the game. We regrouped after the first intermission and got back to playing our brand of hockey."
Turville said the team was able to regroup and refocus and come out stronger in Game 2 on March 6.
The Colts received a strong effort from their special teams as they scored three power-play goals en route to a 7-5 win to even the series at 1-1 at home.
"We really worked on a few items we saw as mistakes in Game 1," he said. "We came out with a big effort in Game 2 to tie the series."
Turville said the team really focused on improving their scoring as well as defence.
"Essentially we tightened up in our defensive zone," he said. "We started shooting the puck more and taking it to the net more. Once you get into playoffs it gets down to competing and winning those little battles and I think we did a better job of that."
The Colts also saw some good bounces go their way in that game.
"I think it was our sixth goal, Alan Klinck's, was a dump in from centre ice that took a fortunate bounce for us and ended up getting past the goalie," he said. "That was a lucky one. But one of the reasons we took over that game is we got a really good game from the line of (Wyatt) Gelinas, Klinck and (Zane) Leatherdale. They scored six of our seven goals that night with Gelinas capping it off with a hat trick."
March 8 saw the Colts battling back after falling behind 2-0 to tie the score. They got the game-winning goal in double overtime for the 3-2 win on the road.
"We carried that momentum from Game 2," said Turville. "Although we didn't have our best start. We came out a little sluggish. We were fortunate to only be down one after the first period. In the second period we showed some composure as Airdrie took some penalties. They got more aggressive and we didn't retaliate. I think that helped swing the momentum."
Turville said it was pretty satisfying to take a 2-1 series lead over Airdrie considering they had only lost three games all season.
The Thunder won Game 4 on Saturday handily by a 5-1 score in Didsbury to tie the best-of-seven series at two games apiece.
Marshal Quartly of the Colts got the opening goal of the game at the 14:18 mark of the first period assisted by Mitchell Visser and Travis Gerrard.
That would be Mountain View's only goal, as Airdrie responded with five unanswered goals to take Game 4.
"That was a game where you could see us run out of steam," he said. "If you look at our schedule up to that point we played six games in the past nine nights. Going back to the last three games against Red Deer, all those games went into overtime. After a couple of days off, we played four games in four nights in the Airdrie series. That was a lot of hockey and I think it really caught up to us."
The teams return to the ice March 12 for Game 5 in Airdrie. Game 6 goes the following day at the Didsbury Arena. Game 7, if necessary, goes Friday, March 15 in Airdrie.
