The Saugeen Shores Winterhawks are firmly behind the 8-ball in their WOAA Sr. "AA" semi-final series with the Ripley Wolves.
The Wolves barged into The Plex on Saturday evening and handed the Winterhawks a 4-1 defeat, taking a 2-0 series lead in the process.
An early Winterhawks power play came up empty, and the Wolves drew a penalty as the man-advantage ticked down, putting the Wolves on the power play, where they opened the scoring.
The Wolves whipped the puck around until they found Ryan Shaw in the slot, and he hammered the puck past Winterhawks starter Jeff Flagler to make it 1-0 for Ripley 5:25 into the game.
The Winterhawks answered back a short time later when Mike Fiegehen walked into the Ripley zone and fired a shot that dropped under Wolves netminder Jason Hamilton to bring the near-capacity crowd at The Plex to their feet.
Unfortunately, that big home crowd had little else to cheer for the rest of the night.
Some late-period sloppy defensive zone play gave Ripley the lead back for good, when Ethan Skinner converted after the Wolves held the zone on a turnover to make it a 2-1 game at 17:22.
Things got heated in the final seconds of the period and the referees called five minor penalties in the final eight seconds of the period as the two rivals got chippy with each other.
The chippiness continued in the second, which saw five power plays called in the period, four of them for the Winterhawks, but the power play came up empty, going 0-for-6 on the night.
Cody Britton put the Wolves ahead 3-1 late in the second period and Ripley shut it down from there, scoring late in the third to make it a 4-1 final.
The series remains in Saugeen Shores, as Game 3 will be played at The Plex on Friday night, March 3rd, with an 8:30 p.m. puck drop.
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