The fourth time proved the charm for the Airdrie Lightning AA midget women’s hockey team. After three losses against the Calgary Fire Red earlier this year – two of which were in shootouts – the Lightning wrapped up its 2018-19 Alberta Female Hockey League (AFHL) regular season March 3 by beating the Fire Red 3-2 in overtime. “…It’s nice to come back and finally beat them for a change,” said Lightning head coach Jay Simpson. “We’d had a shootout loss against them and we were always close, so it was nice to [get the win]. Emma Hoppins and Aly Tinevez found the back of the net during regulation time, before Codi Bacon notched the winner shortly into the overtime period. “After the first period, we asked the girls to be more intense and essentially put more pressure,” Simpson said. “We were sitting back and watching a lot. Once we got our feet moving and got a bit more aggressive, the game seemed to turn around for us.” The win means Airdrie finishes the 2018-19 regular season in fourth place of the south division in the AFHL’s Midget Elite league, with a 15-11 record, including three overtime wins and three overtime defeats. “I think the first four teams, we’re all pretty close,” said Hoppins. “Lots of our games went into shootouts and overtime. We’ll have to play hard in the playoffs to beat even the lower teams.” Following an end-of-year slump that saw the Lightning lose five of its previous six fixtures, Simpson said finally overcoming Calgary was a nice way to close out the regular season – and send a message to the three teams ahead of Airdrie in the south division standings. “We’ve now beaten both Calgary teams and we’ve beaten Red Deer,” he said. “It’s just a matter of losing some games we probably should have won.” Airdrie’s first playoff opponent will be the Rocky View Raiders. Game 1 of the best-of-three series goes March 8 at 8 p.m. at the Genesis Place Recreation Centre.