The Gillespie's Tree Service U15 Red Devils got their quest for the red hats rolling into high gear with the opening weekend of the playoffs in the OMHA East.
A bit of a slow start on Saturday against COW snowballed into an uncharacteristically bad outing. The boys dropped game 1 of their playoffs with the lone offensive bright spots being provided off the sticks of Andrew Laurin and Trent Clow, with assists going to Ewan Dahle on Laurin's goal and Spencer Harold on Clow's marker.
After a quick turnaround the squad looked to hit the reset button on Sunday on the road again at York Simcoe. After digging themselves an early 2-0 hole, QRD finally got on the board with a Lawson Minifie tally with help from Austin Preston off the draw at centre. YSE would get another late in the first to send QRD to the break down 3-1. A power play opportunity saw Minifie feed Brechyn Aird for a blast from the point that Coen Lowry got a stick on to direct home to cut the lead to 3-2. The Express would get that one back to take a 4-2 lead into the intermission. QRD needed a huge 3rd period to get their playoff run on track. The Devils got within one after Trent Clow picked up a loose puck to feed Jack Beebe for a great cross ice pass to Spencer Harold who buried a shot past the Express goaltender. Andrew Laurin would be credited with the tying goal after a York Simcoe miscue saw them put the puck in their own net. The rest of regulation would solve nothing and the 2 teams would try and solve the game in overtime. After some furious action at both ends of the ice, YSE would blink first as Trent Clow sealed the deal picking off a clearing attempt and burying the OT winner over the netminder's shoulder. The 5-4 QRD win capped off a very up and down start to the postseason.
This week sees a pair of weeknight contests as Kingston comes to town on Wednesday and the squad travels up the 401 to Whitby on Thursday. There is also a Sunday afternoon trip to Markham in the cards. Puck drop on Wednesday is at 8pm on the RCAF pad, Thursday is a 7pm start on pad 1 at Iroquois Park and finally Sunday sees the action get underway at 6pm at the Village Arena. Both Thursday and Sunday's games are reported to be available on LiveBarn for those who subscribe.