After a Game Four hiccup, the Wellington Dukes returned to form in Game 5 Friday to finally silence the St. Mike’s Buzzers.

With a 3-0 series lead, the Dukes seemed to be in shape to polish off the host Buzzers in a four game sweep Tuesday night at venerable St. Micheal’s Arena. 

But the Buzzers had other things in mind-namely a stand- and scored three goals in their first ten shots that suddenly left Wellington chasing the game. To little avail. 

After Ryan O’Toole, Nathan Bannister and David Elmy all lit the lamp behind Ethan Morrow in the first, St. Mike’s had a quick strike offence in second. Brandon Cohen’s first of two in the period was score on the power play. Then, Kailin Chen’s 3:24 shorthanded effort made it 5-0 and, if Wellington had any designs on a comeback, they wouldn’t materialize this night.

The Chen goal would chase Dukes starter Ethan Morrow who struggled in his second start of the series.

But Jacob Osborne wasn’t able to reserve St. Miike’s momentum and a pair of Buzzers goals in the back half of the middle stanza made it 7-0 for the hosts.

Edward Moskowitz tries to sneak the puck past St. Mike’s starter Jacob Gorinsky. (Jason Parks/Gazette Staff)

A Luke Perovic goal early in the third made the spread eight goals and the teams would combine for eight minors as tempers flared.

But on Friday, Wellington looked more like the club who found the win column 37 times in the regular season. 

With Osbourne drawing the starting assignment, St. Mike’s was kept off the score sheet until Jacob Vreugdenhil potted a power play marker with six minutes left in the frame.

The Dukes would continue to bulge the twine behind the Jacob Gorinsky and any idea of a second upset win the series being engineered by the Oakville native was evaporating.

Nolan Mozer, Barrett Joynt and Ryan Cutler all scored to make it a 4-0 Dukes lead prior to the end of the second.

But any idea the Buzzers were going quietly went up in smoke as Jonathan Morello scored a power play goal moments before Giacomo Martino, ahem, beat the buzzer, tucking a puck behind the Wellington line with a second left on the clock.

Ahead 4-2, the Dukes continued to send the play up ice away from their net and if David Campbell’s goal at 12:26 of the third wasn’t the dagger Wellington needed, Edward Moskowitz’s power play tally about two and half minutes later was.

A Ryan O’Toole power play goal inside the last two minutes helped make the score more flattering for St. Mike’s who were out shot 38-16.

Wellington moves on to play Haliburton in the second round of the Buckland Cup playoffs, hosting the Huskies Friday night for Game One.

The teams return to Minden for Game Two on Saturday afternoon and then play Game Three at Lehigh on Monday evening.