TIMES STAFF
A come from behind effort the weekend before last allowed Clearwater Midget Icehawks to defeat Lillooet and proceed to the next round of playoffs.
The series against Lillooet had started with a 7 - 4 defeat for Clearwater at the Sportsplex on Feb. 12.
On Feb. 19, however, the Icehawks came back and beat Lillooet 8 - 2 in Lillooet in Game 2.
That set things up for a do or die match at the Sportsplex on Sunday, Feb. 20.
Lillooet led the entire first part of Game 3 and was ahead 3 - 1 with less than 10 minutes remaining.
Graham Jones had scored the first Clearwater goal, in the first period, on the power play - a one-timer from a nice pass from Tommy Brown
With about nine minutes left in the third period Marc Rotzetter scored Clearwater’s second goal.
The Icehawks pulled goalie Ben Weber with 1:10 left in the third period and Marc Rotzetter scored with eight seconds remaining.
The two teams played 10 minutes of overtime with no score before an ice cleaning.
Then Edward Allchin scored with 43 seconds left in the second overtime, deflecting a shot from Daniel Dohms. Graham Jones got the other assist on the play.
Clearwater coach Richard Jones said, “Ben Weber placed exceptional in goal and kept us in the game. It should be noted the Lillooet goalie played exceptional as well.”
“The win was really a team effort,” Jones added. “Every player on our team played with a lot of heart and character to come from behind and win. All players were exhausted but seem to run on adrenalin. We as coaches were really proud of how they played - never giving up.”
The Icehawks’ next series was against Kelowna, which was scheduled to start this past weekend.