The Janesville Bluebirds haven't been a very low seed very often.

This was one of those postseasons where to advance to the next round they were gonna have to do it as the visiting team in regional play.

The Ponds of Brookfield was the site of the regional semifinal. Janesville was playing the Brookfield Stars with the winner playing top seed Arrowhead Friday night.

The Stars led late and held off Janesville with a 5-4 win Tuesday night.

The Bluebirds took the early lead in the first period when junior Cayden Erickson scored on the power play set up on a nice pass from Jake Schaffner. The shot trickled thru and Janesville got a 1-0 lead.

But the Stars did not show any panic. They evened the score at 1 apiece when John Templeton scored his first goal of two goals on the night. He got off a shot from the left circle and it went in short side high.

The first period scoring was finished up with the Stars scoring a goal on a backhand shot from Jacob Fields. Shots were 9-5 Stars after one period.

The second period had lots of offense in the first minutes. Both teams scored twice within the first 2:27 of the second period. Oddly that was all the scoring in the second period and Brookfield led 4-3 after two periods. John Templeton got his second goal in the period as did Cayden Erickson of Janesville. Sirogg Ibraheem of the Stars and Jackson Lyons accounted for the other two goals that period.

Janesville led in shots 12-8 in the second period.

The third period had Brookfield scoring the game winner 3:25 into the period. Sam Bretzel was able to gobble up a rebound and the Stars had a 5-3 lead.

Janesville freshman Jake Schaffner made it a one-goal game with exactly seven minutes left in the game when his shot went thru a pileup in front of the net and past goalie Malcolm Jennings.

Both teams were given penalties in the final minutes and Janesville even had a offensive face off with a few seconds left but could not get the game tied and Brookfield the number 8 seed advances in the playoffs.

Brookfield goalie Malcolm Jennings finished with 24 saves. Cody Kaas ended with 27 saves.

Brookfield is now 11-14 and plays Classic Eight Conference rival Arrowhead in the regional final Friday at the Mullett Center.

Janesville ended the season with a 6-17 record.