The Saugeen Shores Legault's Independent Grocer Storm Midget AE's started their playdowns (best 3 of 5 series) on the road in Mitchell Friday night.
Opening the scoring was the Storm's Stephen Pilar on a backhand that found the five hole at the 12:38 mark of the first period. Assisting on the play was Justin Greig.
Early in the second period Ryan Crosetta banged in the puck from infront of the Mitchell net for a 2-0 Storm lead.Taylor Schihl assisted on the goal.
Mitchell then ran into penalty trouble including a major interference penalty when Brodie Farrish was knocked over as he was leaving the ice for the extra attacker on a delayed penalty call. After the dust settled,the Storm was awarded a 7 minute powerplay and Brodie seemed alright. But the Storm could not take advantage and add to their 2 goal lead. Once the penalty expired, Mitchell came back hard and scored their first goal on a deflection at the 5:37 mark of the second.Less than 30 seconds later Mitchell scored the tying goal and a minute and a half after that had scored again for a 3-2 lead which they carried into the third.
The Storm tied the game at the 9 minute mark of the third period on an unassisted goal by James Besito who broke in on the Mitchell goalie,drew him to the glove side of the net and then fired a wrister top shelf stick side.The rest of the period saw the Storm have to kill of a number of man advantage situations and the period ended tied requiring a 10 minute sudden death overtime to be played. Overtime solved nothing and the game ended in a 3-3 tie.
Game 2 was scheduled to be played at the plex Saturday night but the Mitchell team did not show-up.