The Shelburne Vets find themselves with their backs to the wall as they head to Elora on Friday night for game three of their best of five Junior C play-off series against Centre Wellington, trailing the Warlords by two after 14-12 and 9-3 defeats.

The two teams split their regular season meetings with each squad taking two of four closely contested games leading many to believe this would be a closely contested series.

Playing game one in Elora last Friday night, that proved to be case in a see saw battle that went down to the final minutes to decide the winner.

Up 4-1 in the first, Shelburne saw that lead soon vanish and by the end of the second period, they trailed Centre Wellington 11-6.

In the third, the Vets rallied to tie it up at 12- 12 only to have a pair of late Warlord markers snuff out that rally.

Playing back in Shelburne on Saturday night, both squads traded chances early but it was Vets' Josh Menzies teaming up with Ben Syme to open the scoring just over five minutes into the first.

Centre Wellington, however, was not about to let Shelburne hold onto that lead and fired back with five of their own before Miles Montgomery notched one with 2:09 left in the period assisted by Menzies and Wade MacKey.

Second period action again saw Centre Wellington strengthen their lead with a pair on either side of David Irons goal at 15:22 which would be the last time Shelburne tripped the score clock.

The Warlords added two more in the third to give them a commanding two game series lead with the 9-3 victory.

Heading into the playoffs, Shelburne coach Paul Falkiner predicted that goaltending would prove to be the deciding factor in this series and, so far, that seems to be proving itself out. Having outshot Centre Wellington in both games, he acknowledges that the strong showing of Warlords goalie Shawn Murray is making the difference, "their goalie is stealing the game".

Despite the two losses, Falkiner does not think his team is playing that bad and notes that, even when they get behind, the team is still fighting and digging away, "We just needed goals and they didn't come".

With the season on the line Friday night, he knows the team will come ready to play Friday night. "We are going to play hard and work hard. We are going to do everything we can to get that win and will be leaving everything on the floor."

The opening draw of game three is 8 p.m. at the Elora Community Centre. Games four and five if necessary are scheduled for 8 p.m. on Saturday at the CDRC and and in Fergus Tuesday night at the same time.