Rocks win wild card final, meet Stratford in quarter-finals
ELORA – The Elora Rocks advanced to the Western Ontario Super Hockey League’s quarter-finals with a 7-3 victory over the Delhi Flames in the league’s wild card final Sunday at the Jefferson Elora and District Community Centre.
Both teams had won wild card semifinals earlier on the weekend, the Rocks disposing of the Orangeville Blitz 6-2 at Elora Friday and the Flames ousting the Dunnville Aeros 4-2 Saturday at Delhi.
The Rocks secured Sunday’s win over Delhi with three goals in the third period. The hosts had scored the lone goal of the first period and led 4-3 after the second.
Zack Cameron had a pair of goals for Elora while singletons were netted by Spencer MacCormack, Jeff White, Matteo Condotta, Steven Dol and Alex Uttley. Condotta had three assists while Charlie Stephens had two and Shaun Pickering, Blaize Bridges, Cameron, Anthony Filoso and Uttley had one apiece.
Christopher Martin scored all three goals for Delhi. Sebastian Guastadisegni, Christian Lloyd and Luke Sinclair each had an assist.
The Flames outshot the Rocks in each period for a 45-32 advantage overall. Delhi also went 2-for-3 on their power play while the Rocks went 2-for-9.
Colin Dunne had 42 saves for Elora while Benjamin Blacker had 26 for Delhi.
The Rocks had finished the regular season eighth in the 11-team league at 10-12-2 (W-L-OTL) while Delhi had been ninth at 9-14-1. Dunnville was 10th at 8-13-3 and Orangeville 11th at 3-21-0.
Elora advances to play the defending champion Stratford Fighting Irish in the best-of-five quarter-finals. Stratford finished first at 16-6-2.
The teams met twice during the regular season with Stratford winning both games as the Fighting Irish won 5-4 at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex in Fergus Nov. 17 and 8-4 to close the regular season Feb. 17 at Stratford’s William Allman Arena. The Rocks played their home games in Fergus until Jan. 26 due to renovations at the Elora arena.
The quarter-final is to start Friday in Elora. Game time is 8:30 p.m.
Game 2 is to go in Stratford Saturday starting at 3:45 p.m. while Game 3 is slated for March 9 at Stratford at 3:45 p.m.
If a fourth game is needed, it’s to be played March 10 at Elora. Starting time is to be determined.
If the series needs Game 5, it’s to be played in Stratford March 13 beginning at 8:30 p.m.
The two teams are the league champions from the first two seasons as the Rocks won the inaugural championship in 2022 and Stratford won last year.
Elora swept Stratford in four games in the best-of-seven semifinals in 2022 before besting the Tillsonburg Thunder 4-2 in the best-of-seven final.
The Fighting Irish swept Elora in four games in the best-of-seven semifinals last year and they also swept Tillsonburg 4-0 in the best-of-seven final.
- Guelph Sports Journal