Falcons clipped in 3rd overtime
Only six points separated the Caledonia Corvairs and the St. Catharines Falcons in the standings over the course of a 50-game regular season, and there was only a twogoal difference in total goals against between the stingiest defences in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League.
So it was hardly surprising that overtime was needed when the top two seeds in the Golden Horseshoe Conference opened a best-of-seven final Wednesday night in Caledonia.
What was surprising was how long it took before a winner could be declared.
The game started at 7:30 and the drama didn’t end until four hours later when Eddie Schulz scored to give the Corvairs a 3-2 victory.
His sixth goal of the playoffs found the back of the net 3:14 into the third overtime period, and the shot was the 58th that Owen Savory faced in the St. Catharines goal.
He edged Corvairs counterpart Bradley Van Schubert for Postmedia Network star of the game honours as Caldonia outshot St. Catharines 58-38 in a series opener that, at 103.4 minutes, was 17 minutes shy of being two complete games.
Falcons head coach Chris Johnstone said his team came out strong after having only three days to recover from a “tough series” against the Niagara Falls Canucks.
“It’s a real credit to them seeing how much energy they had left in the tank after coming off of a tough series,” he said. “They made a great, great statement tonight.
“Too bad the bounces couldn’t have gone our way — we hit a post in the second overtime — but that’s hockey.”
Again the Falcons showed they can keep up with the three-time defending Sutherland Cup champions.
“Tonight we showed we can play with them, but we’ve doing that all year,” Johnstone said. “We match up well against them, much better than we matched up with Niagara Falls.”
Adam Craievich opened the scoring 7:16 into the game for the only goal of the first period to give the Corvairs a 1-0 lead.
In the middle frame, Lucas Smilsky and Zach Main, with the Falcons playing shorthanded, put the visitors ahead by one until Trent Mallette’s power-play goal knotted the game at two-all after two periods of play.
Caledonia hadn’t played since Sunday, March 19, when it completed a sweep of the fourth-seeded An cast er Avalanche, while the last action for St. Catharines was Sunday in Game 6 of the semifinal against the No. 3 seed Niagara Falls Canucks.
Corvairs head coach Mike Bullard said while his players were a “little rusty” playing Ancaster following a first-round bye, he didn’t think there would be an issue with the team’s preparedness against the Falcons.
“This has become a big rivalry for us,” Bullard said. “The boys look forward to playing them, so I know we will be ready.”
Caledonia won the season series four wins to two, nine points to four.
Falcons Feathers: Caledonia and St. Catharines are playing for the conference championship for the fourth year in a row … This was the first overtime game of the playoff for the Corvairs and the second for the Falcons. St. Catharines dropped a 4-3 decision to Niagara Falls in the third game of the semifinals.