The Estevan Tier I Atom Bruins won their first playoff game this week against the Weyburn Wings but weren’t able to complete the sweep.
The Bruins (1-18-1) lost 3-1 to the Wings (4-12-4) at the Power Dodge Ice Centre Sunday afternoon to the Wings in Game 2 but won 5-4 in Weyburn Friday night, meaning the Bruins forced a third game.
“I thought the second and third our guys played really well,” said Bruins assistant coach Aren Miller. “Our goalie took it to them really well and if we’d have buried some of those chances in the second period we would have been up two or three goals after that. But that’s playoff hockey. We got a slower start, which we’ve got to improve on. Our kids have been improving all year. A little hiccup like this might benefit them.”
Sunday, the Bruins were down 2-1 after the second period, thanks to a goal from Conrad Hase, assisted by Kail Hilstrom and Carter Hirsch, leading to a frantic third period that saw them get chances but no goals.
“We’ve had some close games and we’ve had some stinkers, but it’s the only team in the league that we’ve beat,” Miller said. “We kind of expected to win this. And then going up and winning game one, we set ourselves up pretty good. We knew they were going to play their best (Sunday) and they did.”
There were a lot of good players from the team over the pair of games.
“I thought all of our guys were really good,” Miller said. “They were buying in. I thought Carter Hirsch was really good, Conrad Hase was really good and Justin Folbar was really good. And then we had Keenan (Beriault) and Graiden (Irwin). Most of our D played really good. They gave up some goals but they made some plays and in atom AA, to only give up three goals and only four goals in the game, it shows that kids are competing and there’s not a lot of scoring chances.”
Monday’s final score for Game 3 was unavailable from the source.
