DEESIDE DRAGONS’ hopes of glory in the end-of-season play-offs have been dashed by Whitley Warriors.

It was the Warriors who ended Deeside’s campaign in Ice Hockey’s Division One North play-offs 12 months ago and they repeated the trick with a 13-9 aggregate victory this time out.

Dragons were looking to make their mark in the home leg first up, but they were defeated 6-4.

“It just seems to be at certain times we come up a bit short,” said assistant head coach Matt Compton, who admitted a few bounces and decisions didn’t go the way of the Dragons over the two legs.

“It was the Saturday game that really lost us the tie. It was so strange. We looked so nervous. We made a lot of out-of-character errors.”

MVP Ross Kennedy grabbed a hat-trick in the first encounter and he was joined on the scoresheet by Andy McKinney (pictured above).

Deeside were looking to turn things around in the second encounter 24 hours later, but it was Whitley who bagged a 7-5 verdict on this occasion.

Warriors built-up a 3-0 lead by the end of the first period, while goals from Brodie Jesson and Chris Jones got the Dragons on the scoreboard in the second period.

McKinney, Jared Dickinson and Jakub Hajek all found the target in the closing period.