Birthday boy trades party favours for goals

JESSE FRASER, captain of the Lorette Scorpions, knows exactly what you do when your 18th birthday falls on a Friday night before the Winnipeg High School Hockey League final.

You turn in early so you can lead your team to a come-from-behind win.

Fraser scored both regulation goals in the third period for the Scorpions while Kevin Holden scored the deciding shootout marker in a 3-2 victory over the Shaftesbury Titans on Saturday at the MTS Iceplex.

"I stayed in because of the big game today. This is just a huge win for us, we needed it," said Fraser, whose team was down 2-0 after two periods.

"Now we're going to come back strong tomorrow and hopefully take the series."

The Scorpions took a 1-0 lead in the best-of three final in the WHSHL's Winnipeg Free Press division. The second game is set for today at 3 p.m. in the Remax Rink. If a third game is necessary, it will be played on Monday at 5 p.m. in the Winnipeg Free Press rink.

"I was expecting a tough series and that's what we're getting from Shaftesbury, they won last year," said Lorette coach Laird Laluk, referring to the Titans being the defending division champions.

In the Lorette-Shaftesbury game, Fraser scored Lorette's first goal at 12:20 of the third period and then pumped in the game-tying goal with 4:55 left in the the game.

No one scored in the 10-minute overtime period, forcing the shootout.

Shaftesbury captain Daniel Giles notched his team's first goal on the power play with 15.2 seconds left in the first period.

"I told our guys, we were going to have to win the second game anyway and that's what we still have to do," said Shaftesbury head coach Eugene Kaminsky. "Our last playoff series, we lost in the first game to Transcona in a shootout and then won the next two. Our guys understand that, we didn't want to go through it again but we're ready."

Scoring in the shootout for Shaftesbury were Connor Massey and Louis Bolingen while Lorette's other shootout scorers were Justin Tremblay and Tyler Dowhanik.

In the Platinum division, Dominic Blouin scored the game-winning goal 32 seconds into overtime to lift the Kelvin Clippers to a 4-3 win over the St. Paul's Crusaders. Mike Lorange, who assisted on the game winner, also scored a pair of goals. Chad Pearch scored for Kelvin.

St. Paul's Brian McDonald scored with 34 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 3-3 and force the overtime. Easton Oliver-Hanna scored the other two goals for the Crusaders.

Game 2 of that Platinum division series will be played today at 3:40 p.m. in the Winnipeg Free Press rink. If a third game is needed, it will be played on Monday at 7:20 p.m.

In the Coca-Cola division, the St. Norbert Celtics defeated the Warren Wildcats 4-2. The second game of that best-of-three series will be played today at 5:30 p.m. in the Remax rink. If a third game is necessary, it will be played on Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the Remax rink.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 4, 2012 B5