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March 8, 2011
EL PASO TO HOST MIDWEST DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFFS The El Paso Rhinos will be looking to avenge last year’s MidWest Division playoff defeat at the hands of the Boulder Junior Bison when they host Boulder this weekend in the 2010-2011 Division finals at the Sierra Providence Events Center in El Paso.
The teams will face off at 7:30 PM on Friday and Saturday nights. If a third game is necessary to determine the division champion, it will be played Sunday at 5:00 PM. The Rhinos overtook the Junior Bison toward the end of the regular season, finishing in first place by just three points. El Paso won 33, lost 11 and had 2 overtime losses to total 68 points. Boulder’s record was 31 wins, 12 losses, and 3 OTL’s for 65 points. The regular season series between the two teams was very close. In head-to-head competition, each team won six of the 12 games they played. One of the Boulder wins was in via a shoot out, back on October 23, 2010, in El Paso. The one point El Paso picked up for the shootout loss contributed to the three point cushion in the standings. The number of goals scored by the two teams against each other was extremely close, also. In the 12 games, the Rhinos scored 46 goals. The Junior Bisons netted 44. Each team had one game in which it scored 8 goals as the high score for the series. Eight of the 12 games were decided by two goals or less. The winner of this weekend’s series will be the MidWest Division Champion, earn an automatic berth in the Juniors National Tournament to be played in Rochester, Minnesota, on April 1-5, and will host the winner of the Western Division Championship series in which the Idaho Junior Steelheads are hosting the defending league champion Phoenix Polar Bears in McCall, Idaho, this weekend.
Submitted by Dick Dorfman - Junior Steelheads Play-by-Play - (208) 514-5419 |