Pistons fall in heartbreaker

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This article was published 29/03/2017 (2577 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Steinbach Pistons suffered a crushing 3-2 defeat to the Portage Terriers Wednesday night at a packed house in Steinbach as the favoured Pistons now find themselves trailing 2-1 in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League best of seven semi-final series.

The two rivals, who have met in the MJHL playoffs for five straight years, split the opening two games of the series, with the Pistons winning game one 5-4 at home on Friday and then Portage rebounded with a 4-3 triple overtime victory Sunday at Portage.

In last night’s game three it was scoreless after the first before Braden Purtill pounced on an errant puck three minutes into the second and buried it into an open Portage net for his sixth goal of the post-season.

Portage tied it two minutes into the third on a goal by Ryan Sokoloski before Jack Johnson again gave the Pistons the lead as he scored with eight minutes left in the third.

Then late in the third, with Portage netminder Brock Aiken at the bench in favour of an extra attacker, Ty Enns tied it for the Terriers with just over one minute remaining. Just prior to that goal the Pistons’ Ryan Carlson narrowly missed scoring an empty net goal that would have the given the Pistons at 3-1 lead.

But the Terriers kept coming. With the game now tied, Takato Cox scored the winner with just 17 seconds remaining in regulation.

The Terriers outshot the Pistons 35-26 in the contest, including 16-6 in a dominant third period as the Terriers outscored the Pistons 3-1 in the final frame.

Game four in the series will be played Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Portage and then game five back in Steinbach Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, the OCN Blizzard hold a commanding 3-0 lead on the Winkler Flyers in the other semi-final series as the Blizzard beat the Flyers 3-1 last night at OCN.