Taylor Widenmaier's natural hat trick in a 5:29 span in the second half of the first period put the Casselman Vikings ahead 3-0 and the Vikings went on to take Game 1 of the Eastern Ontario Junior Hockey League's Rideau/St. Lawrence Conference final, 5-3 over the Athens Aeros in Casselman on Sunday night.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is slated for Tuesday night in Athens at 8 p.m.
After Widenmaier's explosion, Mark Craig replied for Athens with 2:22 left in the first period to make it a 3-1 game.
Casselman did some more damage in the second period, scoring twice — goals by Luc Forget and Devin Desnoyers — to effectively put the game out of reach. A pair of Michael McKenney goals in the third — one a short-handed effort at 1:47 and the other a power-play goal at 17:48 — finished the scoring.
Widenmaier finished the game with four points, his second consecutive 3G, 1A performance and his fourth four- point game of the playoffs (he scored four goals in the Viking's St. Lawrence semifinal opener against the Winchester Hawks). He leads the team with 17 goals and 21 points in 12 post-season games.
Casselman outshot Athens 44-40 in the game, and Alexandre Michaud gained the win in goal, his ninth in 12 starts, leaving him with a 1.91 GAA. Aeros netminder Erik Miksik (8-4) saw his GAA go up to 2.13 as he allowed more than four goals against for the first time in the post-season.