The season ended in heartbreak Monday night for two Nova Scotia university men’s hockey teams.
The Acadia Axemen and St. Francis Xavier X-Men both lost by a goal in the decisive third games of their best-of-three AUS quarter-final series, with the Axemen falling 6-5 in double overtime to the UPEI Panthers and the X-Men succumbing 1-0 to the Moncton Aigles Bleus.
UPEI advances to play the top-seeded UNB Varsity Reds in the semifinals while Moncton goes on to meet the No. 2 Saint Mary’s Huskies.
Panthers 6, Axemen 5 (2OT): In Charlottetown, Matt Carter netted the equalizer at 1:48 of the third period and then eliminated Acadia by scoring 1:41 into the second extra period to end a roller-coaster affair.
Jared Gomes also scored twice for the fourth-seeded Panthers. Chris Desousa and Alex Wall added singles.
Spencer Jezegou, Joel Ridgeway, Liam Heels, Adam McIllwraith and Jonathan Laberge countered for the No. 5 Axemen, who rallied with four straight goals after falling behind 4-1.
The game was the third straight decided by one goal. UPEI took the opener 4-3 on their home ice Friday and Acadia won by the same score on Sunday in Wolfville.
Aigles Bleus 1, X-Men 0: In Moncton, the sixth-seeded X-Men outshot their hosts 36-24 but couldn’t beat fourth-year goaltender Pierre-Alexandre Marion.
St. F.X. netminder Joseph Perricone turned aside 23 of 24 shots but Dean Ouellet’s power-play marker at 2:46 of the first period, just nine seconds after Michael Kirkpatrick was sent off for roughing, stood as the winner for the third-seeded Aigles Bleus.
The X-Men thought they had tied the score when Spencer McAvoy banged home a wrap-around bid with 2:26 remaining but the goal was waved off because an X player was ruled to be in the crease impeding Marion.
The X-Men went 0-for-7 with the man advantage.
Moncton, which finished 13 points ahead of St. F.X. in the regular season, won the opener 3-0 in Moncton on Thursday before the X-Men edged the Aigles Bleus 3-2 in Antigonish on Saturday.
