Kings defenceman Kelly Summers leads a rush into the Bulls’ zone with Sam Schutt in hot pursuit.

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Eganville – The Killaloe Kings will meet Calver Lumber in the Eganville Hockey League (EHL) championship series that gets underway this Friday night (March 7) after wining their best-of-three semi-final series with the Barry’s Bay Bulls last Friday night (Feb 28).

The Kings doubled the Bulls 6-3 in the third and deciding game to earn the right to meet the defending champion Calver Lumber team in the best-of-five championship final.

Killaloe got two goals from Dylan Kuehl in the win that saw the victors open up a 4-1 lead at one point, only to see Barry’s Bay storm back in the third to close the gap to 4-3. However, the Kings responded with two late goals to seal the win and eliminate the Bulls.

Gabe Schutt wasted no time staking Barry’s Bay to a 1-0 lead as he beat Kings goalie Ryan Donohue with a hard wrist shot to the top corner just 41 seconds into the contest.

Kelly Summers tied the score exactly two minutes later, completing a beautiful end-to-end rush that he finished with a deke on Richard Barr in the Bulls’ net.  The teams traded chances for much of the remainder of the period, with Donohue making a big pad save on Bailey Hein and Barr turning aside good scoring chances by Kuehl and Summers. Then with 1:56 remaining, Kuehl netted his first of two, burying the rebound of a Sam Klawitter shot to put the Kings up 2-1.

The second period opened with Donohue making another big save on Hein, while Barr rejected shots from Jack Shulist and Zack Luckasavitch to keep the Bulls close. Kuehl stretched the lead to 3-1 five minutes into the frame, finishing a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play from Shulist and Ryan Lepine.

That lead held up until the third period when Shulist found the twine with 1:40 gone off the clock to put Killaloe up 4-1 while the team was enjoying a power-play. Barry’s Bay answered 40 seconds later, with Sam Schutt burying the rebound of a Dylan Resmer shot past Donohue to make the score 4-2.  Hein narrowed the gap to 4-3 after collecting a Denver Schruder pass and finding the twine behind Donohue.

 The Kings added some insurance midway through the period when Luckasavitch found a loose puck to the side of the net and slipped it past Barr to restore Killaloe’s two-goal lead at 5-3. Klawitter sealed the win with an empty net tally with 22 seconds to go to end the game 6-3.

Each team had three penalties in the contest. The best-of-five final starts this Friday night at 8 p.m.