The Davidson Cyclones senior hockey team lost Game 3 of the provincial ‘A’ semifinal 6-3 last Monday at home to the Lanigan Pirates marking the first time in five years the team would not finish the season with a provincial title.

“We definitely played hard,” said Cyclones goaltender Mark Zoerb, who picked up the Game 2 win in Lanigan two days earlier to bring the series back to Davidson for the deciding game in the best-of-three semifinal. “It was a good series. They are a really good hockey team. It’s no shame losing out in the semifinals in ‘A’ provincials. There are a lot of good hockey players there.”

Zoerb said the Pirates clutch shooting in the third period when they snuck in four goals in the frame to the Cyclone’s one was Davidson’s downfall and that’s the way it seemed to go the whole series. He said the Cyclones were feeling good heading into the third with the game tied 2-2, but eventually a good team like the Pirates is going to get their chances.

“I know the goal that we scored and then got called off (on a shot from Kyle Bortis with 3:18 remaining in the second and the score tied at twos) definitely didn’t help any, but we still played strong after that,” he said. “It was just overall, they came back and scored a couple goals.”

Jason Shaw, coach of the Cyclones, said Lanigan “won the third period” in every game in the series and that proved to be the difference. He said everybody on his team gave it their all on the ice during the last two games of the series, but the breaks didn’t seem to go their way.

“We were up 3-2 in the third (courtesy of a Pat Cey tip 4:14 into the frame) and we couldn’t finish them off,” said Shaw. “They’re a good team. They finished first in our league and they’re in the league finals. It was disappointing to lose. Really we were disappointed after Game 1 (with) the way we played. Game 2 and Game 3 we didn’t play to our utmost potential, but the effort was there and it just didn’t work out.”

Shaw said the team played with a short bench “pretty much all year,” but the players that did come out worked hard. He said the Cyclones got the most out of what they had and should be proud of their season despite not winning a title.

To read more please see the March 24 print edition of The Davidson Leader.