Komoka Kings take a decisive 6-1 victory over the Maroons at the Chatham Memorial Arena in the 5th game of the first-round series and take the series 4 games to 1.
Maroons were inspired early and peppered the Kings net for the first 5 minutes until the Kings started to take control. Chase Strychaluk scored his first of the playoffs at 10:27 on assists from Dario Beljo and Griffin St. Onge, First period ended 1-0 for the Kings and the Kings had a 17-16 shot advantage.
At 4:24 of the second period Maroons scored to tie the game.1-1. D-man Dowson Zheng scored his second of the playoffs at 8:00 unassisted. At 9:38, just 6 seconds after the Maroons took a penalty, Bryce Lewis scored his first of the playoffs with assists to Jacob Rochford and Dowson Zheng.. Former Maroon and Blenheim native Cameron Welch scored at 17:16 assisted by Luc Arsenault and Dillon Ward, to give the Kings a commanding 4-1 lead at the end of the second period. Kings outshot the Maroons 12-8 and started to control the game.
Penalties continued to haunt the Maroons as Ryan McAllister scored a Kings power play goal at 10:26 of the third, his 3rd of the playoffs, and assisted by Joel Mazzilli and Spencer Lapointe for a 5-1 Kings lead. On another Kings power play at 11:18 Dowson Zheng scored a second unassisted in the game and third of the playoffs. With a 6-1 lead the Kings finished the game on tight forechecking and defensive clearing of the Maroons attacks and Owen Say continued his steller play to stop the Maroons from narrowing the lead, and a 6-1 Kings victory. Shots were 12-9 in the Kings favour and 41-33 overall.
Maroons took 10 penalties and yielded 3 Kings power play goals. The Kings killed the only penalty taken by the team, a bench minor for too many men on the ice.
Game stars were Dowson Zheng as first star, Owen Say as second star and Cameron Welch as third star.
Kings advance to the semi-finals facing the Leamington Flyers in a best out of seven series. This is the first time since 2005-2006 season that the franchise has advanced to the semi-finals.