The first night of the Big Six quarterfinals is in the books, after a pair of games Tuesday night. The Bienfait Coalers took the Carlyle Cougars to double overtime, then scored the game-winner to pick up a 4-3 win to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series. The other series saw the Carnduff Red Devils shutout the visiting Midale Mustangs 6-0 to take a 1-0 in the series.

In Carlyle, the Cougars were the first on the board when Brett Turgeon scored at the 4:39 mark of the first period. His goal was assisted by Billy Greenwood. It then became a 1-0 game when Cooper Fox found the back of the net. His tally was assisted by Clayton Geiger.

Before the end of the first, the Coalers would get on the board when Levi Kress scored his first of the playoffs. He was assisted on the goal by Mason Benning and Jason Hengen.

Neither team scored in the second period, which set up a close finish in the third.

It all started with a penalty shot awarded to Greenwood before the frame was three minutes old. He made good on his attempt, and it was a 3-1 lead for the home side.

The Coalers rallied back in the later stages of the period, led by the league's leading scorer in the regular season, Dylan Herzberg. He scored with 14:02 on the clock, assisted by Wyatt Garagan and Keegan Malaryk. It was followed up with another goal just under four minutes later. Again, Garagan assisted on the tally, with the other assist credited to Preston Erickson.

The two teams were then off to overtime, as no one was able to break the tie in the final ten minutes of the third period.

It would be in the second overtime period, when Malaryk would be the hero of the game, scoring just past the halfway mark of the fifth period of hockey. His game-winner was assisted by Erickson.

Game two in the series is set for Friday night in Bienfait.

The details for the game between Midale and Carnduff aren’t available at this time. We will update the story with the information when it becomes available.