Palm Desert, CA—The Milwaukee Admirals saw their season come to an end on Monday night as they dropped a 4-3 decision to the Coachella Valley Firebirds in game six of the Western Conference Finals. The win gives the Firebirds a 4-2 series win and moves them onto the Calder Cup Finals where they will play the Hershey Bears.
Three times in the game the Admirals scored to pull within a goal, but were never able to find the equalizer, as they saw their deepest run in the playoffs since 2006 come to a close.
Michael McCarron, Adam Wilsby, and Kiefer Sherwood scored the goals for the Admirals, while Devin Cooley stopped 17 shots in net.
Coachella came out firing and got the first two goals of the game to take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission. Alex True started the scoring with a snapper over the shoulder of Devin Cooley 7:31 into the game and that was followed by Ryker Evan’s third of the playoffs to put the Ads in a two-goal deficit.
McCarron cut into the Firebird’s lead with his fourth of the post-season and third in the series 1:50 into the second. Austin Rueschhoff started the play when he centered the puck from the right corner to Joakim Kemell in the slot. Kemell’s shot was muffled, but trickled right to McCarron, who easily slid the puck by the outstretched pad of Joey Daccord.
The Firebirds were able to re-establish their two-goal advantage when Tye Kartye scored his first of two on the night at the six minute mark of the sandwich frame.
The Ads cut the lead to again to one early in the third period when Wilsby led a three-on-two into the Coachella zone before taking a shot from between the wheels that floated over the shoulder of Daccord. It was Wilsby’s third goal of the playoffs.
Kartye’s second of the night, this one on the power-play, pushed their lead back to two goals at 4-2.
For the third time Milwaukee would pull within a goal as Sherwood tipped a Marc Del Gaizo shot at 11:15 of the final period. However that was as close as the Ads would get despite an extra attacker on the ice for the final 2:36 of the contest, including 72 seconds of 6-on-4 time.
