The Portage Terriers’ season came to a close Saturday night when they lost 6-3 to the Winkler Flyers.
The Flyers continued their strong physical style of hockey in game 5 and used their home crowd to their advantage. They scored three unanswered goals in the first period from Brady Craik, Trent Penner, and Jakob Jones. All of the momentum was in Winkler’s favour as they outshot Portage 17-5. This was the first period in the series where not a single penalty was called.
The Terriers shortened their bench in the second period and didn’t give up. Adler Johnston scored a nice one-timer goal on the power play to get Portage on the board. With Brandt Young in the box for Winkler, Parker Scherr had a point shot find its way through traffic to draw the Terriers within one. With the Flyers reeling, Winkler Captain Trent Penner stepped up and scored his second of the night to make it 4-2. It would stay like that into the intermission.
The third period was tight with Winkler not giving up much offensively. With the Terrier net empty, Adler Johnston scored on a goal mouth scramble to draw within one. The Terriers couldn’t tie the game in the dying seconds and Winkler added two empty net goals to send them to the second round.
The Terriers finished the night 2/2 on the power play and 2/2 on the penalty kill. The Terriers will now clean out their lockers and head home this next week after a hard fought season.
Thank you Terrier fans for all your support.
Tickets for the Terriers’ Gigantic 50/50 can be found at gigantic5050.com. The pot is guaranteed at $50,000! The final draw will be Monday April 1 at 4:30pm.