THUNDER BAY – Jeremy Adduono truly believes his team deserved a better fate than it was handed on Saturday night.
But it’s the English River Miners who are moving on to the Superior International Junior Hockey League final against the Dryden Ice Dogs, the first championship round appearance in the team’s short four-year history.
Matt O’Neill scored the overtime winner with 3:27 to go in the first extra period, delivering a come-from-behind 5-4 triumph and a 4-1 victory in the best-of-seven series, the Miners winning the final three games to advance.
It was the second straight OT win for English River.
“It’s unbelievable,” O’Neill said. “I’m at a loss for words. It’s awesome. That’s my first goal of the playoffs. The rebound came out and I just shot it and it went in. I couldn’t even celebrate, I was so excited.”
It’s a win that showed the Miners true character.
After opening up a 3-1 lead in the second, English River got into penalty trouble late in the second, and with two men in the box, the Stars began their comeback, Ryan Walsh closing the gap by a goal with five seconds to go in the period.
Eighty-eight seconds into the third they were in the lead, Jonathan Masters tying things up 47 seconds into the frame and Brad Abrabia potting the go-ahead goal at the 1:28 mark.
It would have been easy for the visiting Miners to fold up their tents and test their fate in Game 6 on Monday at home, but they battled back to tie the game and only waited 1:46 to do it.
Dwayne Auger punched it past Nathaniel Dupuis from the goal mouth, the last time puck would find the net until O’Neill’s winner.
“We just stay positive and don’t get down and just stick to the system and it just turned out to work,” O’Neill said.
“Obviously we wanted to finish it tonight. We know we’re in better shape than them. We’ve been working hard for this all year and just kept playing, kept pushing and hoped they would give us a turnover and we’d put it in the net.”
Walsh said the Stars gave it everything they could, but just came up short.
“It definitely is a very tough loss. It’s always hard losing in overtime and unfortunately it’s my last loss in junior. It was a good year. We all worked hard and there was nothing else we could do there.”
Adduono called it a devastating loss.
“I really don’t think our team had a lot more to give, to be honest. We showed a lot of character coming back from down 3-1. I thought we generated a lot of chances through the overtime and unfortunately for us it wasn’t meant to be,” Adduono said.
Joe Newhouse scored first for Thunder Bay, the first of four power play goals the Stars collected on the night, the goal coming at 7:48 of the first.
English River tied it six minutes later, Terix Fischer-Kobes firing a shot that deflected off Aaron Wesley-Chisel’s skate and past Dupuis.
Michael Di Lullo gave the Miners their first lead five minutes into the second, his sixth of the series, English River going up 3-1 on Sidney Gladue’s power-play marker at 9:16.
“It’s a pretty surreal feeling right now,” said Miners coach Derek Sweet-Coulter. “I’m just really proud of them to come back the way they did. It’s unbelievable.”
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: Thunder Bay, Newhouse (Siau, Gillis) 7:48. 2. English River, Fisher-Kobes (Janke, Johnson) 13:28. Penalties: Gillis TB (hooking) 1:52, Driedger ERM (slashing) 5:49, Cirone ERM, Nigro TB (roughing) 10:02, Masters TB (interference) 18:13.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 3. English River, Di Lullo 6 (Driedger) 5:24 pp. 4. English River, Gladue (Kuhn) 9:16 pp. 5. Thunder Bay, Walsh (Newhouse) 19:55 pp. Penalties: Thrower TB (cross checking) 3:55, Storm TB (holding) 7:49, Wesley-Chisel TB (slashing) 8:14, Thrower TB (tripping) 14:08, Robinson TB, Driedger ERM (unsportsmanlike conduct), Gladue ERM (double minor, spearing) 17:59, O’Neill ERM (tripping) 19:09.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 6. Thunder Bay, Masters (Thrower, Newhouse) 0:47 pp. 7. Thunder Bay, Arabia (Thrower) 1:28 pp. 8. English River, Auger (Fisher-Kobes, Di Lullo) 3:14. Penalties: Thrower TB (high sticking) 9:13.
OVERTIME
Scoring: 9. English River, O’Neill (Auger) 16:33. Penalties: Auger ERM (tripping) 11:41.
GAME DATA – SOG – English River13-13-13-14-53, Thunder Bay 15-14-12-11-52; Power plays (goals-chances) – English River (2-7), Thunder Bay (4-5); Goaltenders: English River: Michael Lenko, Thunder Bay: Nathaniel Dupuis; A: 940.
