LEWISTON — Probably the hottest team coming into the playoffs in any region was Greely.
Winners of nine of the last 10 games of the regular season, the Ramgers also had a playoff win over Kennebunk earlier this week.
Friday, they did it again.
The fourth-seeded Rangers ran their streak to 11-of-12 with a 5-2 victory over Gardiner at the Androscoggin bank Colisee and they will face the York in the regional final next week. The Wildcats are last team to defeat Greely, a 6-2 victory on Feb. 15.
“The way we put together three solid periods tonight was fabulous,” Greely coach Barry Mothes said. “We couldn’t ask for a more composed, mature effort and we did a lot of hard work to get the goals to get the lead. What made me think just as proud and pleased is the way they played in that third period. We didn’t want to go into a shell but we knew they may come hard. We knew they may have some guys sit on the(defensive) zone to jump on pucks. We wanted to make sure we played our best period of the year.”
Greely jumped out to a 1-0 lead after 15 minutes as Jackson Williams found Jake MacDonald just past the four minute mark of the opening frame.
It was an evenly first with the Rangers out shooting Gardiner 13-11.
“It was a lot like the second game against us,” Gardiner coach Sam Moore said. “They moved well, cycling well … and they took advantage of their opportunities.”
Greely continued the momentum in the second, scoring 28 seconds into the frame as Ryan Megathlin lit the lamp with Ryan Sullivan and Andy Moore notching assists.
Being down 2-0 woke the Tigers (13-6-0) up. They controlled the play for the next four minutes, culminating with Connor Manter’s goal from the blue line at the 4:54 mark when the Rangers weren’t able to clear the zone, and goaltender Josh Lawless couldn’t get back into position in time.
Matt Kramlich shifted the momentum back to Greely’s direction, making it 3-1 52 seconds after Manter’s goal. MacDonald and Matt Dubbert had the assists. Kramlich gave the momentum right back as he took a slashing penalty 21 seconds after his goal. Sullivan went to the box and Gardiner had a 5-on-3.
“These games, things are poised to go either way, it was certainly were kind of were in that second period,” Mothes said. “We kind of feel fortunate, but we kind of earned it. We kind of got a break on Kramlich’s goal just taking it to the wide. We were talking about it the whole year: ‘Make sure you get a puck on net.’ It was probably not his strongest shot all year.”
That only lasted 15 seconds as Matt Poirier took a five-minute checking-from-behind that also included a ten minute misconduct. Gardiner took a tripping call and Greely went from being down 5-on-3 to a 4-3 power play after Kramlich got out of the box.
Greely (14-6-0) capitalized as Adam Rost found Jake Saffian in the crease to score on the 4-on-3 man advantage with 3:49 remaining in the second.
Andy Moore scored for Greely and Cam Bourassa scored for Gardiner in the final two minutes of the game.
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