Tulsa Oilers Prepare For Game 5

The Oilers and Mississippi RiverKings are getting ready for the decisive game 5 of their playoff series

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 12:19 pm

By: News On 6

Originally Published: Apr 8, 2011 2:22 PM CDT

Keith Leventhal
Oklahoma Sports Mobile Journalist

TULSA, Oklahoma – The Tulsa Oilers have already rewritten the record book this postseason. By making the playoffs, the team ended its 6 year postseason drought.

The next challenge for the Oilers is winning their first playoff series in 17 years.

Their series with Mississippi got off to a very bad start as Tulsa lost the first two games at home. But, apparently, all the Oilers needed was a long bus ride to Southaven, Mississippi, to get things back on track.

In game 3, Tulsa overcame a late deficit to pick up a 4-3 win. Then 2 days later, they looked even more confident as they beat the RiverKings 4-1.

Now, the best-of-5 series is tied at two games apiece and both teams are back in Tulsa getting ready for game 5.

The Oilers say they know what it’s going to take to win the decisive 5th game.

Oilers forward Gary Steffes says, “Teamwork, we gotta play with emotion, we gotta stick together, no matter what comes our way, whatever adversity comes our way, we gotta stick together and we gotta battle and we gotta keep our minds focused on the very next shift, not getting ahead of ourselves and just staying disciplined within our systems and within our team game.”

And the Oilers leading scorer this year, Chad Costello, adds, “Everyone’s gotta play within themselves and we don’t need any heroes, anybody to do anything they wouldn’t normally do, just a good, hard 60 minutes.”

The winner of this series moves on to the 2nd round. If Tulsa wins, they’ll play Bossier-Shreveport in the next round. If Mississippi wins, they’ll take on top-seeded Allen in the 2nd round. And the decisive 5th game will take place Saturday at 7:35 PM at the BOK Center.