Road ends for Condors in Stockton
| Saturday, Apr 24 2010 11:04 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Apr 24 2010 11:04 PM
STOCKTON -- With the peak just in sight, the Stockton Thunder weren't about to be stalled in their quest to get to the summit.
The Thunder ended the Condors season on Saturday night in front of their home crowd with a 7-4 victory in Game 5 of the ECHL National Conference semifinal playoff series.
The Condors have never made it past the second round of the playoffs, being eliminated by Alaska 4-0 in 2007 and losing to Fresno 4-3 in 2006.
Stockton broke open a 3-2 game with three goals in the first eight minutes and 10 seconds of the third period for a 6-2 lead.
"It's disappointing and all the kids are disappointed, but they should keep their heads up because they had a great season and represented Bakersfield with a lot of dignity and passion," Condors coach Marty Raymond said. "In my seven years of my association with Bakersfield this is the best group of human beings I've been surrounded with.
"There's nothing better to say. They're great kids, they all cared and they all played hard. Look at (NHL veteran) Kyle Calder, he didn't have to come back to play for us and he did."
After the Condors won Game 3 on Wednesday to cut Stockton's series lead to 2-1, Stockton coach Matt Thomas told his team they were still half way up the mountain but that the second half of the climb would be harder.
The Thunder made it look easy with back-to-back blow-out wins.
"We did our job in Game 3 and (Friday) was certainly a let down, the poorest game we had and tonight there was a lot of pressure on us," Raymond said.
The Condors battled all season long to win the ECHL Pacific Division title and the playoff home-ice advantage for that, and it paid off in the first series.
The Condors had to fight back throughout the best-of-five opening playoff series against Victoria, overcoming 1-0 and 2-1 deficits by winning the last two games at home to advance to the semifinal round.
But the Condors didn't take advantage of their home against Stockton, dropping the first two games in overtime.
"That turned out to be a killer," Raymond said. "We missed our chance to win that second game and it didn't go in and they won that game and it took a lot out of us. That's playoff hockey. That's bounces."
The Thunder scored 13 seconds into the game when the Condors turned the puck over in their own zone and Matt Robinson fed a wide-open Chris D'Alvise, who scored from low in the left circle on the first shot of the game.
Bakersfield tied the game 1-1 on a 2-on-1 short-handed rush when Mark Voakes fired in a shot off a pass from Andrew Ianiero at 13:53.
But the Thunder took advantage of a Bakersfield miscue, failing to clear their own zone, which lead to a 2-1 lead on a goal by Matt Marquardt with 2:16 left in the period.
The Thunder opened up a 3-1 lead 2:47 into the second period when a wide-open Garet Hunt scored from the slot. The Condors responded on the very next shift when Stephane Goulet scored from low in the left circle to cut the lead to 3-2.
Jason Pitton, Colin Hemingway and Steve Vanoosten had the early third-period goals for Stockton with Ianiero netting a goal for Bakersfield. Bryan Young scored a short-handed empty-net goal from 175 feet away with 4:35 left and MacGregor Sharp scored a minute later for Bakersfield.
Notes
Forward Erick Lizon was back in the lineup on Saturday after sitting the past two games. Also back in after sitting out Friday was Nick Kemp. Maxime Macenauer, Gino Guyer and Matt McCue did not play. Timo Pielmeier played in goal and stopped 27 shots.
