The Sarnia Legionnaires have their backs to the wall following Sunday's 4-1 playoff loss to the London Nationals.

With the win the Forest City team took a commanding 2-0 lead in games in the best-of-seven Western Ontario Hockey Conference quarterfinal series.

Game three goes Wednesday in London, with the fourth contest set for the Brock Street Barn next Thursday.

"We got completely outworked in the second period,” Sarnia coach Dan Rose admitted afterward. “You've got to be ready to compete for 60 minutes in the playoffs. You've got to keep going, shift in and shift out. You can't take your foot off the peddle.”

Rose conceded “Our backs are to the wall” but also noted, “It's a seven-game series.”

The Legionnaires dominated the first period, outshooting the Nationals 19-6. But outstanding goaltending by Taylor Edwards allowed the visitors to escape to the dressing room after the opening 20 minutes with the score tied at 1-1.

Edwards displayed a hot glove hand time and again, catching several goal-labeled drives. But he was aided, Rose said, by the fact that the Legionnaires “weren't getting traffic to the front of the net.”

Turning point

The turning point may have come early in the first period when Legionnaire spark-plug Tanner Tomlinson was ejected for checking from behind.

Initially, neither referee made a signal to call a penalty on the hit and play continued. But at the next whistle, with Nats player Clark West crumbled on the ice behind the London net, looking for all the world as if he'd been mortally injured, Tomlinson was assessed a two-minute minor for checking from behind. Such an infraction carries an automatic game misconduct.

On the ensuing power-play Marcus Pepe scored to give London the lead.

Not long after Tomlinson's banishment, West made a miraculous recovery. He even went on to score a goal later in the game.

"We missed Tomlinson's energy,” Rose said.

He added the referee told him he had seen the check from behind from the start but had not called it immediately because he wanted to check with his linesman.

Jesse Drydak got Sarnia's only goal when he fired home a high shot from the faceoff circle with the home team enjoying a two-man advantage. Captain Tyler Cicchini and rookie Nathan Mater assisted on the play.