Posted: Mar 08, 2025
March 8th, 2025
The Briercrest Clippers won a league-high 19 games this season en route to a first place finish, but playoffs represent a new and very short season in which the grind of a long season is replaced with a best of three series to advance. The Concordia Thunder are taking full advantage of this, having knocked off the NAIT Ooks and now pushing the Clippers to a winner-take-all game three on Sunday after a 5-3 victory Saturday evening.
It was packed in the Barkman arena as the crowd could feel how close Briercrest was to reaching their first ever ACAC finals after the 8-4 shellacking they gave Concordia the previous night. Lucas Lapalm set up Jake Dale for an early strike and the home side had all of the momentum. In fact, you could have hard-boiled an egg in the time it took the guests to register their first shot, but they did collect themselves and were able to create some sustained pressure in the offensive zone. They were rewarded with a tying goal and the teams skated into the first intermission knotted up with 10 shots and one goal apiece.
Some frustration set in as play got underway in the second after a five-minute major was assessed to a Clipper defender and the Thunder were able to score twice on the powerplay. They added another just moments later and it seemed as though things were slipping away from the home team when a perfectly weighted pass from Zach Thususka sprung Dale for his second marker of the game. Briercrest tilted the ice and started outshooting the visitors, but Griffin Bowerman returned to form after getting pulled in the previous game and turned aside several dangerous chances.
Briercrest continued to have penalty trouble in the third period and Concordia extended their lead to 5-2, but the Clippers refused to quit and Dale completed the hat trick with less than five minutes to play to narrow the gap to 5-3. They ratcheted up the pressure as Daxton Budd and Reagan Poncelet both came close, but solid goaltending from Bowerman as well as some gutsy shot blocking by Zachary Cunningham helped the Thunder escape with the win and send the series to a sudden death game three Sunday afternoon. Emotions were high at the end of the game, but the Clippers know the importance of a quick reset and they'll be ready to go tomorrow.
Players of the game were Zachery Carlson for Concordia and Jake Dale for Briercrest.