73’s, Canadiens into semifinals
The defending champion Essex 73’s and regular-season champion Lakeshore Canadiens have advanced to the Bills Stobbs Division semifinals in the Provincial Junior Hockey League.
The third-seeded 73’s completed a four-game sweep of the sixthseeded Petrolia Flyers in the bestof-seven with a 3-0 win in Petrolia on Sunday coming on the heels of a 6-0 win in Essex on Saturday.
William Stadder, Anthony Cristofaro and Luke Gecse scored in Sunday’s win for the 73’s while goalie Jax D’Hondt made 26 saves for his second-straight shutout.
On Saturday at the Essex Centre Sports Complex, Cristofaro scored twice with Cody Leeming, Michael Ruttinger, Tyler Boughner and Quinn Fazekas scoring single goals and D’Hondt made 18 saves for the shutout.
The top-seeded Canadiens also completed a four-game sweep of the eighth-seed Blenheim Blades with a 2-1 win in Blenheim on Sunday, which followed a 3-2 overtime win at the Atlas Tube Centre on Saturday.
In Sunday ’s game, Kyle Brothers and Colin Sartor gave the Canadiens a two-goal lead in the second period and Erik Morneau made 21 saves to earn the win in goal.
On Saturday, Mejoe Gasparovic scored at 4:27 of overtime to lift the Canadiens to victory at home. Sartor and Matt Smith also scored for Lakeshore while Morneau made 24 saves.
The fourth-seeded Amherstburg Admirals took a 2-1 lead in its bestof-seven series with the fifth-seeded Mooretown Flags with a 7-2 win at home on Sunday.
Josh Talerico, Caleb Paquette, Cory Burns, Ryan Alexander, Austin Jennings, Amilio Acampora and Brett Smith scored single goals for the Admirals.
On Saturday, Amherstburg lost a three-goal lead in the third period and fell 4-3 in overtime to the Flags.
Kyle Meloche, Michael Hatch and Dylan Muzzatti scored for the Admirals while goalie Ben Larder made 55 saves.
It took until the final game of the regular season for the Windsor Lancers to clinch an OUA playoff spot.
The Lancers beat the Western Mustangs 7-1 on Saturday at South Windsor Arena to clinch the eighth and final playoff spot in the West Division.
Windsor will play No. 7-ranked Guelph Gryphons in the first round of the playoffs.
Ben Assad scored twice for the Lancers (10-11-7). Todd Ratchford, Alex Friesen, Blake Blondeel, Ian Parker and Kody Gagnon added single goals for Windsor, which won its final three games of the regular season.
The women’s team missed the playoffs, but closed with a 4-1 win over the Ryerson Rams at South Windsor Arena.
Emily Bowman, Amy Maitre, Sydney Dobbin and Danielle Butler had the goals for the Lancers. With a 5-4 win over Waterloo on Friday, the Lancers ended the season with back-to-back wins for first time the season to double the team’s win total and finish at 4-1-17-2.
The Leamington Flyers made it four straight wins in the Western Conference of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League with a 7-2 win on the road Saturday over the Strathroy Rockets.
Zach Guilbeault had two goals for the second-place Flyers (2910-4-3). Griffin Robinson, Dylan Weston, Josh Pope-Ferguson, Maddux Rychel and Jaydon Fetter added single goals against the Rockets (11-30-2-3).