This is posted on the Edmonton Sun website:
Saints battle back for victory
By CON GRIWKOWSKY, Edmonton Sun
Last Updated: April 5, 2011
CAMROSE — You can’t keep a good team down.
The Spruce Grove Saints proved that adage Tuesday night, scoring a 5-4 come-from-behind win over the Camrose Kodiaks before a crowd of 1,922 at the Edgeworth Centre.
Down 3-1 early in the second period, Spruce Grove got four unanswered goals from Matthew Benning, Dylan Richard, Michael Claffey and Tom Nolte.
The Saints extend their AJHL championship series lead to 3-1 and can wrap it up in Game 5 Friday night in Spruce Grove.
The line of Richard, Claffey and Sammy Spurell each had two-point nights in the win. Josh Koper had the game’s opening goal for the Saints.
“That was a huge turnaround,” said Claffey.
“When I saw that goal to in, I was ecstatic. Just the whole way we turned it around on that comeback was unbelievable.
“Every night, somebody else is going. We responded perfectly (after Monday’s loss). Every guy was bouncing back. We were frustrated about getting shut out. There’s not much needed to say about the upcoming game and how important it is to the boys.”
Spruce Grove took just two penalties, while scoring twice on nine power-play chances.
“We knew coming in discipline would be a key,” said Saints coach Jason McKee. “We were able to get a couple of power-play goals and a couple of goals on nice individual efforts.”
The Saints have not lost two in the row his season after being the runaway leader with only eight regular-season losses.
Brink of elimination has become part of the vocabulary for Camrose head coach Boris Rybalka, whose team took the lead on goals by Tyler Jewitt, Craig Bokenfohr and Brooks Myers, then got a late goal from Sam Jardine.
“We predicted we’d get a token penalty with two minutes left and we were off by 31 seconds,” said Rybalka about the unbalanced penalty situation.
Rybalka did save some wrath for one of his undisciplined players.
“The turning point was a selfish spray of the goalie,” said Rybalka, who benched Luke Challier after he took the unsportsmanlike penalty.
“We had them totally in the palm of our hands. The score was 3-1 and every momentum was to us. Then at 10:21 of the second period, for no reason, you go spray a goalie. The tide was turned then. We had it and we let it slip away.”
Camrose has been there five times already this playoff year and will have to win two of the next three games on the road to pull off the upset.
ICE CHIPS: A brawl broke out after the final buzzer sounded ... Camrose’s version of the Green Men (and a Pink Gal) made an appearance in the stands, cheerleading for the Kodiaks.
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