Thunderbirds lose 3-2 to Tri-City in OT

Goaltender Jacob DeSerres was willing to take full responsibility, but there was really little he could have done.

Colton Yellow Horn chipped the puck into the net 45 seconds into overtime on the power play to lift the Tri-City Americans to a 3-2 win over the Seattle Thunderbirds.

The win gives the Americans a three-games-to-one lead in the Western Conference semifinals, with Game 5 scheduled in Kennewick on Friday.

"It was a tough goal, but I had to come up with it and it cost us the game," DeSerres said. "They've got a great power play and it has won them their three games. We played hard, I just needed to come up with one more save."

DeSerres had several spectacular saves among the 37 he made in the game, but he couldn't stop Yellow Horn after a hard, perfect pass from Taylor Procyshen.

The goal was the ninth on the power play in the series on 19 tries for the Americans. For Yellow Horn, who led the WHL with 48 goals in the regular season, it was his sixth of the playoffs.

The winning goal was set up when Seattle defenseman Benn Olson was called for holding with 12 seconds left in regulation.

"I thought it was a soft call," Seattle coach Rob Sumner said. "For how hard the game was being fought, it was marginal when it gets called at that time of the game."

It was the second consecutive 3-2 win for the Americans at KeyArena and came after the T-birds lost forward Prab Rai to injury in the second period. The T-birds also played their third consecutive game without captain Thomas Hickey, who suffered a concussion in Game 1, Seattle's only win.

"I disagreed with the call, but we still needed to kill the penalty and that was the difference in the game more than the actual call," Sumner said. "Our guys played hard and really scratched and clawed and showed a lot of heart and character. We keep getting nipped by injuries and are doing our best to fight through it."

Ian McKenzie, who had 19 goals during the regular season, gave Seattle the lead with his WHL-leading eighth goal of the playoffs at 8:31 of the first.

Shaun Vey tied it with a power-play goal for the Americans at 17:04 of the opening period.

Kruse Reddick gave the Americans the lead with a short-handed, unassisted goal at 9:41 of the second period.

The T-birds tied it with Greg Scott's fifth score of the playoffs at 14:04 of the second.