The Elora Rocks had two firsts last weekend - gaining their first win of this season's 'AA' playoffs, and suffering their first loss of the 2009-10 season.
Elora took Game 1 from the Ripley Wolves 4-3 last Friday night, but lost 7-6 in overtime a night later in Ripley to even the series at 1-1.
Game 1 was a close contest, with Elora never trailing at any point. Jeremy Machin opened the scoring with a short-handed goal midway through the first period, and the Rocks held that lead through the intermission. Ripley tied the game 58 seconds into the second period, but Brett Machin put the Rocks back in front when he beat Kurt Edwards four minutes later.
Ripley's top line of Nick Locking, Travis VanGaver and Kurtis Colling then combined to tie the game again when Van Gaver beat Joe Amlinger for his only point on the night.
After playing nearly a period tied at 2-2, Elora scored twice in a six-minute span to put themselves in control of the game for good. Ken Dunn put the Rocks back in front when he scored less than two minutes into the third period, while Jeremy O'Donnell scored Elora's lone powerplay goal four minutes later to boost the lead to two.
Locking then scored on the powerplay to cut the lead down to 4-3 with nine minutes to play, but Amlinger and the Rocks' defence held off the opportunistic Wolves for the win.
Rich Colwill, Josh Taylor, Ryan DeBoer, Matt Snider and Jeremy Machin (2) finished with assists.
Game 2 was a different story for a multitude of reasons. Elora seized a 3-0 lead in the first 12 minutes of play - goals from John Lunney, DeBoer and Snider put the Wolves back on their heels.
However, Ripley rocked back off their heels and into the lead with a four-goal burst in just over two minutes to close out the period. Curtis Schmalz scored twice, while Locking and Colling added one each in the rally that gave Ripley their first lead of the series.
Elora didn't waste any time getting the lead back, as Brett Machin and Aran Myers scored early in the second period to give the Rocks a 5-4 lead. Travis Martin scored a tap-in goal to put the Rocks in front 6-4 late in the second, seemingly setting them up for a comfortable lead.
Nathan Gavey scored a powerplay goal early in the third period, while Van Gaver tied the score after beating two Elora defenders and shoveling the puck past Amlinger. That left just over 13 minutes to play, and both teams had their chances but couldn't get the go-ahead goal in regulation. Elora had two opportunities to take the lead back, beating Ripley goalie Jason Reid but getting unlucky bounces both times.
Locking wound up as the hero for the Wolves, scoring just under six minutes into overtime after getting a shot past O'Donnell and Amlinger that fooled the Elora goalie.
Myers, Colwill (2), O'Donnell, Mike Brito, DeBoer, Pat Shantz, Lunney, Craig Dool and Brandon Young finished with assists. Amlinger stopped 42 shots in the loss, while Reid made 50 saves in the win.
Following the game, Rocks coach Kevin Lobsinger was asked which hurt more - losing for the first time this season, or giving up two and three-goal leads?
"Losing a game had to happen eventually - you just can't wish to have a perfect season all year long," he said. "I'm not going to say that we screwed up too much tonight because that's a good hockey team that beat us. We had a few unlucky bounces go against us and a few that didn't go our way."
The two that didn't fall in the Rocks' favour - both near misses in the third period on pucks Reid didn't see at all - were ones that could have drastically altered the tenor of this series in Lobsinger's mind.
"Gerbs (Ryan Gerber) had one ring off the post, and then their goalie gets half a skate blade on another shot that he never even saw - if either of those goals go in we're looking at a 2-0 series lead which would have been huge," he said.
With this being their only loss so far this season, Lobsinger doesn't think it will have an adverse affect on them. In fact, he believes it will serve to make them better over the long haul.
"I don't think we're in any danger of letting this get us down too much," he said. "I know these guys here never like to lose, and they're not going to be too down because we've lost once in 25 games. We're going to have a good practice on Wednesday and come back up here for Game 3 ready to go."
Jeremy Machin took a similar view of things, giving credit to the Wolves for being hungry enough to win but saying that Elora played far from their best game in the loss.
"I think this is a wake-up call for us - we didn't compete nearly hard enough to win," he said. "They fought really hard and won all those small battles you need to if you're going to win games like this. We just didn't compete hard enough."
When asked about the prospect of coming back from their first loss of the season, Machin just shrugged it off.
"It doesn't hurt as much as when you give your best effort and come up short," he said. "That's what happened here - this wasn't even close to our best effort. We have a lot of character guys on this team and we're going to come back here with a lot better effort for Game 3."
The third game of the series will be played back in Ripley on Friday, Feb. 19 (8:30 p.m. start time), with Game 4 returning to Elora on Sunday, Feb. 21 for a 7:30 p.m. puck drop. The Rocks will then host Game 5 on Friday, Feb. 26 at their regular 8:30 p.m. starting time.