The Picton Pirates have made their best-of-seven semifinals with the Napanee Raiders a lot more interesting, grinding out a 4-2 win in Game 3 tonight at the SPC.
Napanee still leads the series two games to one, but the Pirates have shown they can hold their own with the second seed, recovering from a slow start in the first period of Game 1 to play a much more competitive series.
Saturday night they never trailed, jumping out to an early lead courtesy Hunter Matthysse’s goal 6:20 into the game. Noah Brant pushed the lead to 2-0 at the 11:48 mark.
Napanee’s offense came to life in the second as Rheydan McCoy scored a little over three minutes into the frame to cut the lead in half. Just over three minutes later Noah Westwater potted the tying goal.
The game remained tied until Picton’s Jack Dow scored the crucial go ahead goal with five and half minutes to go in regulation. Brant tacked on a huge insurance goal in the final seconds of the game to ice the victory and get the Pirates back into the series, though there’s still plenty of hockey to be played.
Nolan Lane stood tall in net, turning away 38 shots for the win. Bailey Maracle made 32 saves for Napanee.
Picton was 1-7 on the power-play while Napanee was 0-4.
Through three games the two sides have proven to be evenly matched with Napanee scoring six games thus far, Picton with five.
The Pirates will look to climb back to even with Napanee tomorrow night in Game 4, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. in Picton. Game 5 will return to Napanee on Tuesday with a 7:30 p.m. puck drop.