Yarmouth and Truro battling in playoffs

Tight battles between Yarmouth and Truro at the start of their playoff series ensured the Eastlink South Division semi-final series will go to at least a Game 5.

Whether the series stretches out beyond this remains to be seen.

The Yarmouth Mariners took Game 1 of the best-of-seven-game series with a 2-0 win at home over the Truro Bearcats on March 15.

There was no scoring by either team in the first period. Yarmouth’s first goal of the game came off the stick of Noah McMullin (Matt Smith, Aaron Maillet) at 14:25 in the second period. It was towards the start of the third period at 4:18 that the Mariners added their second marker with a goal by Connor Peveril (Duncan McKie, Chris Goreham).

In what was a low-penalty affair, Truro got the six-on-four-man advantage with 1:27 left in the third period when the Mariners were sent to the box on an interference call. The Bearcats pulled goalie Kevin Resop from their net for an The Mariners looked for a scoring opportunity on this play in Game 2 in Truro but the only goal of the game was scored by Truro. added extra attacker but Truro lost their two-man advantage when they were given a hooking penalty with 14.3 seconds left in the game.

Yarmouth had 30 shots on net. In net for Yarmouth Leif Hertz, who was named first star of the game, turned away all 31 Bearcats shots for the shutout.

Following the game of the playoffs Mariners head coach Laurie Barron said he felt his team had gotten off to a bit of a shaky start but played very well once they set- tled down.

“I thought our start was a little just average, I thought we had some guys with a few nerves,” he said. “The first five minutes were a little jittery, after that I thought we did very well and as the game went on I think we got better and better.”

In saying that, Barron said this series won’t be a cake walk for either team and he expected tough battles from both teams for all games.

Game 2 was played March 17 in Truro. The Bearcats’ Karter Renouf scored on the power play at 14:09 in the first period for the only goal of the game that ended 1-0 for the Bearcats to tie the series. Shots on goal were almost even with 25 for Yarmouth and 26 for Truro.

Game 3 was played in Yarmouth on Monday, March 19, after this newspaper’s press deadline. Remaining in the schedule is:

• Game 4: Yarmouth at Truro March 21, 7 p.m.

• Game 5 (if needed): Truro at Yarmouth March 23, 7:30 p.m.

• Game 6 (if needed): Yarmouth at Truro March 25, 7 p.m.

• Game 7 (if needed): Truro at Yarmouth March 27, 7 p.m.