Caylan Walls celebrates his late second period goal vs. Haut-Madawaska in the Allan Cup quarterfinals Thursday in Lacombe (rdnewsNOW/Troy Gillard)

By Troy Gillard

quarterfinals

Innisfail advances to Allan Cup semifinals

Apr 11, 2019 | 11:04 PM

The Innisfail Eagles picked an ideal time for their first ever Allan Cup win.

The Eagles took out the Haut-Madawaska Panthers 5-1 in quarterfinals action Thursday night at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex in Lacombe to earn a spot in the semifinals on Friday.

“We played really well the first two games and we didn’t get rewarded,” said Eagles head coach Brian Sutter of his team’s 0-2 round-robin record.

“We got rewarded once or twice tonight. First two games we had five luck goals scored against us. Tonight we got a couple.”

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Innisfail opened the scoring 9:39 into the first period on Darren Reid’s first goal of the tournament.

Haut-Madawaska tied the game 8:40 into period when Kurt Bensmiller turned the puck over at the Panthers blue line and Peter Trainor came the other way and set up Andrew Randazzo to tip one past Eagles goalie Kraymer Barnstable.

Reid struck again at the 15:21 mark on a power play to put the Eagles up 2-1. Caylan Walls jammed home a loose puck at 18:42 also on a powerplay to give Innisfail a two goal lead.

Innisfail controlled the game in the third period and sealed their victory with goals from Braden Crone at 15:56 and Justin Cox into an empty net at 15:50.

“During the playoffs, and at this time of year, it’s a process. It ain’t easy. It was hard on them. We stayed with it and made it hard the whole game because they’re a skilled group,” Sutter surmised.

“It felt really good,” Reid said about his team’s first win of the week. “We’ve been looking for this since we started on Monday. We got some good bounces, which we were waiting on all week, took the puck to the net and just got lucky.”

Reid admitted it felt great to find the back of the net twice to help lead his team to victory.

“I’ve been waiting for one since game one, so I thought I’d better just start playing physical and open up some ice for my linemates. Eventually it started working, I opened up some room and they started getting me the puck.”

Innisfail will take on the Stoney Creek Generals in the semifinals Friday at 4 p.m. The Eagles fell to Stoney Creek 4-1 in round-robin play on Tuesday.

—

In Thursday’s other quarterfinal the Rosetown Redwings knocked out the South East Prairie Thunder by a score of 4-2.

Jordan Johnston, Jared Jagow, Kyle Ireland and Zachery Zadorniak scored for the Redwings. Devon LeBlanc and Ian Lowe replied for the Prairie Thunder.

Nikolas Amundrud made 39 saves for Rosetown to earn the win over Steve Christie, who made 23 saves for South East.

Rosetown will battle the host Lacombe Generals at 8 p.m. Friday in the semifinals.

The championship game goes at 6 p.m. on Saturday.