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Liam Fitzgerald opened the scoring, and Max Chakrabarti finished it, as the Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings beat the Battlefords North Stars 2-1 Monday night to advance to the SJHL semifinals. The win gave the Red Wings the series win in six games, and marks the first time since the 2011-12 season the team has advanced to the semi-finals.
“I thought our attention to detail was a lot better than it’s been over the last few games,” head coach Cody Mapes said after teh game. “We had a real good video session yesterday, and I think the guys took it to heart and applied it today very well.”
The Red Wings opened the scoring with 6:37 remaining in the second period when Fitzgerald netted his third goal of the playoffs to make it 1-0. He was assisted on the goal by Jonah Bierd and Cyprus Smith-Davis.
Weyburn then added to the lead in the third period, when Chakrabarti scored his second of the series. The goal was assisted by Luke Schraeder.
The North Stars would finally solve Weyburn netminder Angelo Zol with 1:33 left when Braden Nienaber scored. It was the only blemish on the night for Zol, who turned aside 34 of the 35 shots he faced.
“The boys played fantastic,” Zol said of the effort in front of him. “They were boxing out and making my job easy tonight. I was seeing everything, so it was great.”
The win has the Red Wings moving on to the semi-finals, where they will face the Flin Flon Bombers. The Bombers moved on with a 5-0 win over the Humboldt Broncos on Monday. The high-scoring Bombers will host Games 1 and 2 at the Whitney Forum on Friday and Saturday.
“They’ve been the best team in our league for a long, long time – consistently – and every year they’ve played in the Championship finals, and we’re going in as the lower seed,” Mapes commented. “So, I think we like that, and we’re going to go up there, get a little rest here first, and then go up there and do our best to come home with one or two.”
The Red Wings won three of the four games between the two teams during the regular season, including two wins in Flin Flon.
The dates for the series have yet to be announced, aside from the games on Friday and Saturday. Catch all the action with Dylan Fiessel when the series starts on Great Plains Ford Red Wing Radio Country 106.7.