The division series are set in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League and four of the league top five regular season teams are still alive.
After the regular season the top two Sherwood Conference teams were the Yorkton Terriers and Melville Millionaires. Those two will start their best of seven series Friday in Yorkton.
The Millionaires advanced after a game seven win over Notre Dame. Melville won games two, three, six and seven of the series and were led by Russell Trudeau who had seven points in the series. Nathan Boyer had six and Colin Mospanchuk had five. The league's most outstanding player, Alex Wakaluk, had a .933 save percentage in the series for Melville.
Yorkton needed just five games to get by Estevan and punch their ticket to the Sherwood Conference final. Patrick Martens led the Terriers with seven goals in five games while Dawson MacAuley allowed just 11 goals in the series and had a .912 save percentage.
In the Bauer Conference, the first overall Humboldt Broncos had no problem beating the Melfort Mustangs, as they won 4-2, 7-1, 5-3 and 5-2. They did lose game two of the series in overtime.
The Broncos are searching for their second league championship in as many years and are being led by captain Joey Davies. He had eight goals and an assist in the series while Logan Sproule had nine assists. Matt Hrynkiw played all five games and has a .912 save percentage going into the series conference final series.
The lone upset in the semifinals came in the Flin Flon/Nipawin series. The two teams were tied 2-2 after four games, but the Bombers went on to win game five by a 7-1 score and finished the series with a 4-0 shutout. Devin Buffalo had a .922 save percentage in the series and played all but 15 minutes of the series. Jason Wark, Brett Penner and Andy Blanke led the Bombers' offence.
Flin Flon and Humboldt will start their series Friday and Saturday in Humboldt.
SJHL PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
The top scorers for both Humboldt and Flin Flon were named co-winners of the Player of the Week honour. Humboldt's Davies had six goals in the final three games in the series against Melfort. Wark had three goals and four assists in the final four games of the series for the Bombers.
The Defenceman of the Week honour goes to Humboldt's Sproule. He had seven assists in the last three games played last week against Melfort.
The Sherwood Conference claimed the other weekly awards. Dion Antisin of Notre Dame was named the Rookie of the Week. Antisin had the overtime goal in game four of the series and had two assists in game five, which put the Hounds up 3-2 in the series before they lost in game seven Tuesday.
The Melville/Notre Dame series featured great goaltending throughout and that is why Melville's Wakaluk and Notre Dame's Ty Reichenbach split the weekly top goaltender award.
Both goalies went 2-2 and had identical 1.73 goals-against average and .944 save percentage marks.
