The season may be over for the Okotoks Oilers but not without a little controversy and frustration over their five game loss to the Camrose Kodiaks in the South Division Semi-Final.

Oilers Head Coach & General Manager James Poole says when his team went down 0-3 in the series it was a tall order to try and come back but a couple of key elements stung them early in the series.

"Games 1-2 I don't think we played good enough to beat a quality opponent like Camrose," he says.  "Throughout the series I think we shot ourselves in the foot a few too many times with some turnovers or some penalties I just look at games one and two it was the same thing turnovers and penalties. Game three outplayed them for 55 minutes but the five minute stretch we were poor."

Despite the Oilers falling to the Kodiaks, Poole says he was happy with the way his young squad came back in the series when their backs were against the wall.

"At the end of the day we were real proud of the kids character they showed I think it's really unfortunate the way the kids battled back in games 3,4 and 5 and for it to end on a controversial goal while sirens are going off and half our kids have stopped playing that they didn't blow that play down. It's really unfortunate our season ended that way."

Poole says he knows if things could have gone in their favour a little bit longer in that third period in game five, there would have been a good possibility of a game seven Wednesday night in Camrose.

"We kind of felt that we were getting better as the series went on because we were using our depth more than Camrose and we really saw some of their top players getting overplayed and we thought if we could have won that game five we would have really been the favourite going to games six and seven because our team seemed to have more gas come the third period of hockey games."

The Kodiaks will face the Brooks Bandits for the 2nd straight year in the South Final starting Friday in Brooks.

Next up for the Oilers is their spring ID camp on April 8-10.

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