After Durham took the series to a 2-1 lead Friday in a 3-1 victory over the Winterhawks in Durham, Saugeen Shores Winterhawks brought it back on home ice Saturday.
The Winterhawks poured in four unanswered goals in the third period Saturday and won in convincing fashion knotting the quarter-final series with Durham 2-2.
While they finished strong the Winterhawks got off to a horrible start as Hawks goalie Blake Sinclair and defensive tandem Greg Thede and Jacob Smith got their signals crossed leading to three shots on net early in the first shift. Sinclair stopped the first two but not the third as Kevin Van Dyck scored 10 seconds into the game.
Chris Brown put the Thundercats up 2-0 with a power play goal midway through the first.
Trent Hawke scored his fourth of the series less than a minute later to narrow the margin. Trevor Smith collected an assist on the play.
The Winterhawks who had been held to one goal in the previous two games looked to be trying to get some traffic in front of Durham goalie Gatlin Burt and the line of Chris King, Alex Penner and Josh Jackson in particular did a good job of that and seemed to be getting under Burt's skin in the process.
After an uneventful second period, the Winterhawks came out for the third period working hard and putting pressure on the Thundercats in their own zone.
The line of Hawke, Blake Underwood and Brent MacDermid evened the score when they gained the blueline and Underwood unloaded from the top of the circle with a shot that beat Burt on the stick side.
Hawke scored the eventual game winner, his second of the night, as he batted the puck out of the air and into the Durham net with just over nine minutes left in the third period.
Dave Grant made it 4-2 with a power play goal as he corralled a loose puck and shovelled it behind Burt.
The Hawks continued to dominate the third and added an empty netter by Jay Thomson with two minutes remaining.
The series resumes in Durham next Friday night at 8:30 p.m. and then are back in Port Elgin Saturday night. Game time is 7:30 p.m.
with files from winterhawks.net.
