What a Round 1 playoff series this is shaping up to be.

The Home Hardware Midget AAA Legionnaires and Notre Dame Hounds battled back and forth in Game 1 of their best-of-five series in Wilcox Saturday afternoon, as the Hounds earned a 3-2 win on home ice.

Both teams traded chances in the first, though a scoreless tilt was carried through to just over seven minutes into the second period.

Mason Strutt buried one past the Hounds keeper on a crisp passing display from Reed Jacobson and Lucas Ochitwa with 12:53 left in the second. That 1-0 lead lasted into the third period.

Notre Dame managed to score a couple quick goals in the final frame to tie things up (15:07 left) and take the lead (13:47 left).

Swift Current tied things up on a quick shot from Chase Gallant in the left circle to keep things dead even.

However, the game-winner came with six minutes left on a bit of a membership bounce for the home team.

The third goal was a puck that hit our defenceman in the hip, and went in the net," said Legionnaires head coach Darren Evjen. "We missed a faceoff, they get a good bounce, and that's the game."

Swift Current ended up out-shooting the Hounds 21-8 in the third period, and 38-25 overall, though several pucks that somehow found a way to tumble wide of the open cage swung the momentum even more in the Legionnaires' favour.

"We have a really good period where we out-chance them by quite a bit, but we just come up short," explained Evjen. "There's no answer to it - I think that's as good of a game as we can play for Game 1 being ready to play. We just fell short by a goal."

"We're playing hard and so are they - it's hard to score," Evjen added, on the 4 vs 5 series that's as neck-and-neck as anticipated.

"Both teams are good defensively, and the goaltenders played well. It's just hard to score in this series so far."

Ethan Hein made 22 saves for Swift Current in the Game 1 loss, though Evjen says the team certainly laid a strong building block to get back in this series.

"We can give more - we can block more shots, we can get some more rebounds, hit more, do everything more for Game 2," he said. "That's how we want to start the series. Game 1 is over, and we've just got to be ready now for Game 2."

Game 2 shifts back to the southwest, as the Legionnaires host the Notre Dame Hounds on March 4 at 7:30 p.m. from Fairview West.