On the road in the provincial capital last night taking on the Regina Rebels, the Diamond Energy Female Midget AAA Wildcats dropped Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.

The Wildcats were shutout 3-0 by the Rebels in what seemed to be a much closer game than the score suggests.

Regina went up 1-0 on the powerplay with 6:42 left in the first - a score that would carry through to the middle of the third period.

Then with 11:53 remaining the Wildcats surrendered goal number two. In the game's final moments and the Wildcats' net empty, the Rebels put the game out of reach with 45 seconds to play.

"Overall we were happy. We probably thought we deserved a better fate - not saying we should have won the game, but probably should have had at least one goal," said head coach Terry Pavely. "If we're within one late instead of two, you never know what happens. So, we don't really want to change much of what we've done, and it's just going to be playing the same way - and obviously you've got to score some goals."

Shots were 29-23 in favour of Regina in the game, but the Wildcats' bench boss says he felt they had the better chances.

"We had a lot of good looks and we missed the net. Sometimes when you're trying to score goals you're picking corners and sometimes you're going to miss," Pavely said. "Even though we were outshot, we had the better quality scoring chances and unfortunately we didn't score."

Aside from capitalizing on scoring chances, Pavely said a key to a Game 2 victory will be crowding the Rebels' crease.

"Probably the other thing we're going to have to do a better job of is when we do get pucks to the net, we've got to have more urgency to get the net and create traffic and make it a little tough," he said. "Of her (Chantel Weller) 23 saves, I don't know if really any of them were contested with traffic in front."

In net for Swift Current, rookie Amaya Giraudier made 27 saves.

Game 2 goes 8 p.m. at Fairview West in what Pavely hopes will have another typical playoff atmosphere.

"That's always nice when you play at home, and we've had a history of getting pretty good crowds in the playoffs - we hope that Wednesday night will be the same."