Shamrocks oust Tavistock, on to division semifinals
TAVISTOCK – The Hespeler Shamrocks continued to be Provincial Junior Hockey League playoff road warriors Monday as they defeated the Tavistock Braves 5-3 in the seventh and final game of their best-of-seven Doherty Division quarter-final at the Tavistock and District Recreation Centre.
The Shamrocks won the series 4-3 thanks to three victories at Tavistock.
Monday, the Shamrocks led 2-0 at the end of the first period and 3-0 after the second. They upped their lead to five goals midway through the third period before Tavistock scored its three goals in the final four and a half minutes including a pair 43 seconds apart in the final two minutes.
Jack Restauri tallied twice for Hespeler while single goals were added by Josh Foote, Braeden Tyler and Justin George. Michael Boyle-Ricupero had three assists while Liam Nelson had two and Ryan Fraser, Kwang Sheng-Luu and Andrew Harris had one apiece.
Nicolas Thibodeau, Ryan Suljak and Christian Bergmann scored the goals for Tavistock while assists went to Tyler Brezynskie and Andrew Van Boekel.
Hespeler finished sixth in the division at the end of the regular season with a 12-28-2-0 (W-L-OTL-T) record while Tavistock was third at 23-16-1-2.
The Shamrocks advance to face the first-place New Hamburg Firebirds (33-7-2-0) in the division semifinals.
The teams met seven times during the regular season and the Firebirds won all seven including the final two games of the regular season. New Hamburg won 3-0 Oct. 8, 10-1 Nov. 19 and 5-2 Feb. 25 at Hespeler and 5-1 Sept. 29, 4-2 Dec. 9, 8-3 Jan. 6 and 6-4 Feb. 23 at the Wilmot Recreation Centre in Baden.
By finishing first in the seven-team division, the Firebirds had a bye in the divisional quarter-finals.
The best-of-seven divisional semifinal is to start Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Baden.
- Guelph Sports Journal