It was all about sevens for the Athens Aeros and Gananoque Islanders as they staved off elimination from their respective Eastern Ontario Junior Hockey League playoff series on Sunday night.

Both the Aeros and Islanders posted 7-1 victories to boost themselves into Game 7s of their Rideau Division best- of-seven semifinals against the Brockville Tikis and Westport Rideaus, respectively.

And both of the deciding games will be played on Tuesday night — 7:30 p.m. in Athens as the Tikis visit, and 8 p.m. in Westport as the Isles hit the road.

At the Memorial Centre, the Aeros snapped a 1-1 first- period tie with three goals each in the second and third frames for the big win that tied the series 3-3.

Shane Hiley, the team's top goal scorer in the regular season who had just one assist through the first five games of the semifinal, broke out of his slump in a huge way, scoring three goals and adding an assist to lead the Aeros. David Empey also had four points, all assists. Scoring single goals were Damian Levesque, Mark Craig, Brian Berry and Michael McKenney.

The lone Tiki to beat Athens G Erik Miksik was Sawyer Woodside.

Athens outshot Brockville 29-24 in the game.

In Gan, the Islanders left little to chance, scoring 54 seconds into the game and then adding three goals in the final 9:15 of the opening period to take a 4-1 lead. A pair of second-period goals and another in the third completed the scoring.

Brett Arrowsmith paced Gan goal scorers with his first two of the series, boosting a 2-1 lead into a 4-1 bulge in the first. Scoring single goals for Gananoque were John Harris, Chris Smith, with his series-leading seventh, Tyler Murray, Bryar Hill and Wyatt Cota. Cota's goal gave him three points on the night and ended his worst scoring slump of the year. The league's scoring leader (100 points) had just one goal to show for the first five games.

G Ryan Kaszuba made 42 saves as the Rideaus outshot Gan 43-38 in the game. Nik Terpak was the only Rideau to beat Kaszuba.