**OHL Western Semis: Game 4**

Plymouth's Austin Levi races Windsor's Justin Shugg to a loose puck Wednesday night. (photo by Ed Wright)

Super Effort,
Somber Result

Wedgewood's Herculean effort not enough as Whalers fall to Spits, 3-2

BY ED WRIGHT
April 7, 2010, 12:30 a.m.

  For 67 minutes and 39 seconds Wednesday night, Plymouth goalie Scott Wedgewood played like Superman.

  Unfortunately for the Whalers, Windsor had just a little bit too much kryptonite.

  Scott Timmins lifted a shot past Wedgewood 7:39 into overtime to give the Spitfires a come-from-behind 3-2 victory on a night when Wedgewood surely helped his status in this summer's NHL entry draft.

  Wedgewood was filling in for starting goalie Matt Hackett, who was handed a three-game suspension following Monday's Game 3 loss to the Spitfires.

  The triumph gave the defending Memorial Cup champion Spitfires a 4-0 sweep of the Ontario Hockey League Western Conference semifinal series and catapulted them into the conference finals against the winner of the Kitchener-London series, which is deadlocked at 2-2.

  The louder-than-a-747 crowd of 3,412 gave both teams a rousing round of applause as the players exchanged post-series handshakes.
 
  The 17-year-old Wedgewood more than seized the rare starting opportunity in his team's do-or-die game by stopping 70 Spitfire shots, at least 15 of which generated ooohs and aaahhhs from the standing-room-only crowd, whose allegiances appeared to be split. 

  Among Wedgewood's acrobatic stops were a glove save on Zack Kassian with 1:16 left in the second period when he stretched his long limbs to the absolute limit to preserve the Whalers' 2-0 lead.

  Wedgewood's 50th save of the night 5:24 into the third period was a diving beauty that robbed Adam Henrique of a sure lamp-lighter.
 
  Windsor net-minder Philipp Grubauer wasn't nearly as spectacular as Wedgewood, but he was triumphantly efficient, stopping 19 of 21 Plymouth shots.

  Playing with the urgency of a team trailing a series 3-0, the energized Whalers struck first blood when Ryan Hayes wristed the puck past Grubauer just 1:52 into the contest to stake his team to a 1-0 advantage. AJ Jenks and Phil McRae assisted.

  The Whalers extended their lead to 2-0 with 4:31 remaining in the second period on a bizarre sequence that started when Kassian ripped a shot from between the circles that dinged the cross-bar before ricocheting out to Plymouth's Robbie Czarnik, who zipped a pass to a streaking Joe Gaynor.
 
  After zooming down the right flank, Gaynor flipped a shot top-shelf past Grubauer to send the Whalers' fans into a frenzy, however, the excitement was abated for close to 10 minutes as the play was reviewed -- not only to see if Gaynor's shot went in, but to verify that Kassian's didn't.
 
  Windsor's already amped-up offense shifted into another gear in the third period, blistering pucks at Wedgewood in rapid-fire succession.

  He was more than up to the challenge until 2:49 into the third period when Henrique knocked home a power-play goal (from Cam Fowler) to close Windsor's deficit to 2-1.
 
  That's how the score stayed until with 38 ticks left in regulation -- just over a minute after Windsor pulled Grubauer for an extra attacker -- Greg Nemisz scored from in front to knot the game at 2-2.
  
  Plymouth's Tyler Seguin nearly countered 12 seconds later, but his spinning blast from 20 feet out sailed just high of the cross-bar.

  Timmins' game-winner 7:39 into the overtime came on the Spitfires' 73rd shot of the game.

Plymouth goalie Scott Wedgewood was knocked back into the net, but not before making a spectacular save -- one of his 70 stops -- in Wednesday night's 3-2 overtime loss.

  Ed Wright can be reached at (734) 453-1980 or info@plymouthcantonsports.com.