Staff
Nothing like a good night’s rest in Fort Frances to get a team ready to set franchise history.
The English River Miners camped out overnight on Tuesday at a local hotel, then headed south yesterday to complete a riveting postseason comeback by beating the Minnesota Iron Rangers 3-1 in the fifth and deciding game of their SIJHL first-round series in Hoyt Lakes, Mn.
English River won its first playoff series in its three-year existence in stunning fashion.
The Miners dropped the opening two games to Minnesota before fighting back to take three straight against an injury-depleted Rangers team that was missing, among others, forwards John Cuni, Austin Ramirez and Alex Arnold and defencemen Isaiah Olschewske, Tyler Lindstrom and Noah Bennett.
That means the Miners will get to experience more Rainy River District hospitality when they visit the Ice for Kids Arena to take on the two-time defending Salonen Cup champion Fort Frances Lakers in Game 1 of their best-of-seven semifinal tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m.
Game 2 will take place here on Sunday at 6:30 p.m., as English River has a previously-scheduled fundraising event scheduled in Ear Falls on Saturday.
The rest of the schedule will be announced later today.
It will be a monumental task for the last-place Miners (12-37-3-4), who lost all 14 games this season to first-place Fort Frances (46-8-0-2) and finished 63 points behind them in the standings.
But English River will have plenty of momentum after rallying against fourth-place Minnesota (21-31-2-2) to eliminate a Rangers them that had won its season series with the Miners by a margin of 10-4.
Konnor Dechaine scored with 28 seconds left in the first to put English River in front.
Trevor Pereverzoff then fired in the eventual decisive goal shorthanded at 8:22 of the second to make it 2-0.
Logan Froberg gave Minnesota life at 3:18 of the third by tallying against Miners goalie Korlan Vader.
But the Rangers met their demise in part to a power-play that fizzled to an 0-for-6 night, including all four of its opportunities in the third.
The last of those resulted in Ryker Moreau potting an empty-netter with 12 seconds left to play for English River’s second shorthanded marker of the night.
Vader finished with 38 saves in winning his third straight start in the series after taking over for Reid Kilburn midway through Game 2.
Anthony Pupplo had 27 stops in defeat for Minnesota.
In other locally-related hockey news, Joe Basaraba got the upperhand on Ryan Faragher in an ECHL first-place battle last night between Fort Frances exports.
Basaraba scored his 11th goal of the season at 7:37 of the first period for the game’s opening marker and his Idaho Steelheads teammates tallied three times in the third to down Faragher and the Utah Grizzlies 4-1 at home.
Faragher made 13 saves as his record slipped to 24-13-2-2 this season with the loss.
The Grizzlies (36-26-3-3) could have taken over first place in the West Division with a victory.
Instead, Utah is now tied for second with the Colorado Eagles (37–26-3-1), three points behind the Steelheads (36-22-6-3), who along with Colorado have five games left to play in the regular season compared to four for the Grizzlies.
Meanwhile, in WHL playoff action, the season is over for Fort resident Jared Bethune and the Prince George Cougars after a 4-3 overtime loss last night to the Seattle Thunderbirds in Prince George, B.C.
The Thunderbirds swept the best-of-seven first-round series 4-0.
Bethune managed to score his first goal of the postseason at 13:41 of the second during a Cougars power-play to give Prince George its third consecutive goal in the frame and its first lead of the night at 3-2.
But Seattle tied it in the third before Nolan Volcan netted his second goal of the game 34 seconds into the extra session to propel the Thunderbirds into the second round.
Bethune finished the regular season with 16 goals and 21 assists for 37 points in 72 games in his second year with the Cougars after recording just 20 points in 61 games last season.
The 19-year-old’s biggest turnaround was in the plus-minus department, where he wound up at plus-8 this season after struggling to a mark of minus-23 last year.
