Elora Rocks nipped in overtime in quarter-final opener
ELORA – The Elora Rocks dropped the opening game of their best-of-five Western Ontario Super Hockey League quarter-final playoff series with the defending champion Stratford Fighting Irish Friday at the Jefferson Elora Community Centre when they surrendered a goal after almost 17 minutes of overtime.
That goal by Ray Robbins gave Stratford a 6-5 victory.
The Fighting Irish had finished first at the end of the regular season with a 16-6-2 (W-L-OTL) record while the Rocks had finished eighth at 10-12-2 and had to beat both the 11th-place Orangeville Blitz (3-21-0) and ninth-place Delhi Flames (9-14-1) in a play-in tournament to earn the right to play Stratford.
Friday, the Rocks jumped into a 3-1 lead by the end of the first period and led 4-2 after the second. They were up 5-3 heading into the final minute of regulation time, but Stratford forced the extra time with a power-play goal with 50 seconds to play and the tying goal 15 seconds later.
Andrew Brubacher, Chad Herron, Spencer MacCormack, Steven Dol and Alex Uttley had a goal apiece for Elora while single assists were given to MacCormack, Jeff White, Joey Heath, Mark Hamilton, Brendan Woods, Zack Cameron and Owen Robertson.
Graham Brulotte had a hat trick for Stratford, his third goal of the game being the tying marker with 35 seconds to go in regulation time. Cameron Stokes, Sean O’Brien and Robbins scored once apiece while Stokes also had five assists. Robbins had three assists while Steven DeGroot had two and Justin Murray and Brulotte had one apiece.
The Fighting Irish outshot the Rocks 47-31 and went 1-for-4 on their power play while Elora went 2-for-4.
Colin Dunne had 41 saves for Elora while Zack Weir had 26 for Stratford.
Second game of the series is to go Saturday at 3:45 p.m. at Stratford’s Allman Arena and the third game is to be played there a week later, March 9, also at 3:45 p.m.
- Guelph Sports Journal