The Davidson Cyclones senior hockey team may have met their match in the provincial ‘A’ semi-finals after falling 6-3 to the Lanigan Pirates last Monday at the Davidson Rink.

The loss was Davidson’s fourth straight to Lanigan including a three-game sweep by the Pirates over the Cyclones in Long Lake Hockey League playoff action earlier this month. Game 2 of the provincial ‘A’ semi-final goes March 15 at Lanigan, while a possible Game 3 in the best-of-three series would come back to Davidson on St. Patrick’s Day.

“It wasn’t the outcome we wanted,” said Cyclones coach Jason Shaw. “The first period we started slow. They got up 2-1 and then they scored in the second to make it 3-1. We had a couple power plays that would have been nice to score on to get back. When we battled back in the third to get it to 4-3 I thought we had a chance.”

That chance was snuffed out on a Pirates goal 17 seconds later when Lanigan’s Brandon Herrod seemed to surprise Cyclones goaltender Brady Willner and the two defencemen in front of him with a shot that found its way into the back of the net shortly after a Lanigan offensive zone face off.

“It was just one of those goals we’d like to have back,” said Shaw. “We had some chances where we hit some crossbars and stuff like that, but it seemed like we would score and they would score right away again. They played well and I don’t think we played our best game. When you get into the playoffs you got to have everything going to win and that night just wasn’t our night.”

Shaw said one of the problems the Cyclones faced in the game was getting off to the slow start which forced their offence to be more aggressive early on resulting in a weak back end. He said they were sending three guys to the net to try and create chances, so when their defence also joined the rush it gave the Pirates lots of chances for breakaway opportunities.

“It’s just a couple mistakes here and there,” he said. “Brady played well. He stopped most of those, so if we (don’t) keep a third guy high in their end that might take away a few of those chances, but we’re pushing to score goals when we get down (then) you create more chances for them.”

The Cyclones plan going into Game 2 is to get to the net more and try to get a few more rebound goals on Pirates starting goalie David Reekie who has played well in Lanigan’s run through this post season. Shaw said the team is just going to put a lot of pucks at the Lanigan net and then let come what may.

“We’re down to our last chance,” he said. We “go there, see if we can squeak one out, and come back here Monday and see how it goes.”