TISDALE 鈥� The Tisdale Trojans鈥� playoff run is over, but their season is not.
The Trojans fell 3-1 last week to the Saskatoon Blazers in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League best-of-five semifinals. The Tisdale squad still has hockey to play. The Trojans are hosting the Telus Cup West Regional. The event, which runs April 4-7 is a qualifier for the Telus Cup national championship in Thunder Bay.
At the start of a hockey-packed week, the Trojans fell in game one, 3-2, at home and bounced back to win 5-4 on the road on Thursday. The Blazers took a 2-1 lead with a 3-2 overtime win in Tisdale on Friday and clinched the series with a 5-2 win on Sunday.
In game one last Tuesday, the Blazers secured 1-0 and 3-0 leads at the intermissions. Two of their three goals came on the power play. The Trojans battled back in the third period. David Wiens scored twice in the third. His last goal came with the Tisdale goalie pulled. The Trojans could not tie things up.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have a great start and that kind of cost us,鈥� Tisdale head coach Darrell Mann said. 鈥淲e were down 3-0 and were able to battle our way back into the hockey game and made it interesting at the end. With our goalie out, we scored once and we had a couple good looks to tie it up. Unfortunately, it didn鈥檛 go in for us.鈥�
The Trojans鈥� offence was definitely working in game two on Thursday. The road team held a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period. Tisdale outscored the Blazers, 3-1, in the second period to take a 5-2 lead into the second intermission. The Blazers scored twice in the final period, but the Trojans held them off.
鈥淚t was a great game. 鈥� The line of Jay Wiens and Mackenzie Carson has been great for us. They scored a couple goals that game for us. 鈥� We have a lot of guys contributing.鈥�
Tisdale scored twice on the power play while the Blazers had three goals with the man advantage. Mackenzie Carson led Tisdale with two goals. Zac Robins, Cade Hayes and Dawson Schaff also scored for the Trojans.
Josh Nagy scored the overtime winner on Friday to put the Blazers up 2-1 in the series. Tisdale鈥檚 Trenton Curtis scored the game鈥檚 first goal, but the Blazers tied things up in the first. Neither team was able to find the back of the net in the second period. Kalen Ukrainetz gave the Trojans a third period lead, but Saskatoon once again answered.
鈥淲e had a number of really good chances to take the lead and stay in the lead, but their goalie played well. 鈥� It鈥檚 a battle and they got a break in overtime and that was the difference.鈥�
On Sunday, the Blazers scored first but Jayden Wiens answered for Tisdale to make it 1-1 at the end of the first period. The Blazer went up 2-1 on the second period鈥檚 lone goal. Tisdale鈥檚 Dawson Schaff knotted the score at 2-2 with a third period marker.
The Blazers scored on a power play to take back the lead. They then added an insurance goal and empty netter to win 5-2.
