The Steinbach Pistons have put themselves in a tough spot after falling to the Portage Terriers 4-2 in game 3, the third consecutive loss in the MJHL Finals and now face the long road back trailing 3-0 in the series.

Another game where the Pistons gave it all they had but a few break downs resulted in Portage goals. Head Coach and GM Paul Dyck comments on the loss. "Yeah it's a tough one. I thought we had a pretty good start to the game and you look at the second period we spent a lot of time in our own zone and some of it unnecessarily. There were situations where we'd be better off icing the puck instead of spending so much energy. They established their cycle quite well and kind of wore our guys down and I thought we didn't have a lot of gas left at the end of that."

Jonah Wasylak scored on an unassisted breakaway late in the third and James Shearer found the back of the net with 20 seconds remaining in the game, the lone assist went to Tyler Penner. Dyck talked about his team never quitting. "We talked about it all year long, regardless of the stage of hockey game it is, we want to play a full 60 minutes if we're down or not and we stressed that again today. It's an identity with our team, we play hard from puck drop to buzzer and we gave ourselves a little bit of a chance but we just ran out of time, but it was good to show some push back.

Nick Deery made 29 saves, the power play went 0 for 4 and the penalty kill went 3 for 4. Portage led 2-0 heading into the final frame and it was an early power play goal that put the game out of reach. Dyck talks about what he expects out of the penalty kill unit. "We talk about the importance of getting the pucks down the ice 200 feet, make them come 200 feet every time when we get possession on the PK in our zone. We didn't execute in that situation and their a team that when those turnovers happen they do a really good job of making you pay in those situations and they did there. It's a pivotal goal, we kill that penalty and we get he next goal it's a one goal game."

The two teams meet for game 4 on Tuesday night in Steinbach. Clichés will be said and they are true, they need to take it a game at a time, the fourth one is the hardest to win and the team facing elimination is the toughest to beat. Dyck notes what he wants from his players heading into game 4. "Just take care of themselves, prepare themselves for the next game to put themselves in the best frame of mind possible. We have to continue to believe. We are going to do everything we can to put ourselves in a position to come back here (to Portage) for game 5 and start the process all over again."