The U16 Tier 1 Okotoks Oilers have tied Airdrie during their pilot season in the Central Alberta Hockey League (CAHL) finals after taking back-to-back games in their five-game series over the March 16 weekend, winning game four by a score of 5-4.

Oilers were down 2-0 in the series but started their march back in game 3 with a 5-2 victory, then adding another win in game four.

Darcy Williams the head coach of the Oilers explains that their games earlier in the season helped prepare them for the comeback.

"It's kind of been a reflection of the regular season, give or take the odd game here and there," Williams said.

"All the games have been tight, our first series against Cochrane, we won that one 2-1 in the best of three series. Some tight games there required us to comeback in the third period to win game three there, and that has just translated over to the final series against Airdrie."

While Williams isn't surprised his team pushed it to a final game, he didn't expect the series against Airdrie to play out as it has. 

"If you had asked me at the start of the playoffs where it would be, I wouldn't have said we would have gone down 2-0 in the series, but if I was having to bet, I would have said it would go to a game five," he said.

Just before Christmas break Okotoks would play Airdrie in back-to-back games and head coach Williams didn't like the effort but believes that helped steer their season in the right direction.

"We have had ups and downs throughout the year, the one thing I focused with them was right before Christmas we played back-to-back games against Airdrie, in Airdrie. Those were probably our two worst games as a team. We lost quite handedly in those games," Williams explained.

"We came back from that break, I told the boys to take the break to recharge, refresh, and don't get angry. Just go do something else for a while, then come back and be ready to work. They have comeback and played hard every single game."

Even after going down 2-0 in the five-game series to Airdrie, Williams was confident in his group to get back on track and push it to a final game. He told his group after going down in the series that they will have a practice win or lose, because he believed they could push it to game five in the series.   

Okotoks would put away Cochrane in three games, winning their first-round matchup 2-1 to move on and face Airdrie in the finals.

Game five starts Saturday night (March 27) at 6:30 in Airdrie.

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