The Nanaimo Clippers have been eliminated from the Crescent Point Western sa国际传媒 Cup.
They lost 5-3 to the Yorkton Terriers on Saturday afternoon at Frank Crane Arena in Nanaimo.
Tyler Giebel, Devon McMullen, Dakota Odgers, Kailum Gervais and Jeremy Johnson all scored for Yorkton, while Dawson MacAuley made 35 saves.
Christopher Rygus, Greg Fraser and Josh Bryan replied for Nanaimo and Jayson Argue made 37 saves.
For the Terriers, the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League champions, this means they will play Sunday at 4 p.m. for the final berth in the RBC Cup.
鈥淚t certainly was not a good start tonight, but I like the resiliency in our guys to stay together. They knew that if they started getting on each other after getting down, it鈥檚 not going to help because you鈥檙e playing such a good team,鈥� said Yorkton head coach Trent Cassan. 鈥淚t鈥檚 nice to get the opportunity to tomorrow to grab one of those berths tomorrow.鈥�
For the Clippers, it鈥檚 game over.
鈥淥bviously we鈥檙e disappointed. We didn鈥檛 work hard all year to not want to be there in the end. We played hard this week and we had a good week in the tournament,鈥� said Clippers head coach and general manager Mike Vandekamp. 鈥淚t had its up and downs and it had a little bit of everything. It was the story of our season all balled up in one week.鈥�
The Nanaimo Clippers came fast and hard early in the first period as Rygus opened the scoring at 2:54 on a point shot that may have been deflected in front of MacAuley. Ten seconds later Greg Fraser scored his third goal of the tournament, unassisted, to put Nanaimo up 2-0.
Yorkton started to settle in, however, and at 10:58 Tyler Giebel finished off a nice passing play with Jeremy Johnson in tight on Argue while on the power play to cut the lead in half.
In the second period, the Terriers poured on the pressure early and tied it up at 2-2 on the power play as McMullen鈥檚 shot from the top of the circle beat Argue who looked like he was interfered with.
Yorkton took the lead on a sloppy play in the Clippers鈥� end, as they turned it over along the boards to Joshua Ellis, the puck was centred and Nicholas Gushue fumbled it allowing Odgers to slip it past Argue.
The Clippers fought back and Bryan scored a power-play goal of his own at 11:35.
But it was all for naught as Gervais put a rebound past Argue at 14:30 of the third period and then Johnson sealed it at 17:24.
