On Wednesday the Yorkton Bantam 'AA' UCT Terriers traveled to Pilot Butte to take on the league leading Prairie Storm in hopes of avenging Sunday's 2-0 loss that snapped the Terriers 10 game winning streak.
Unfortunately for the Terriers they once again ran into hot goaltending, this time by Prairie Storm netminder Jordan Schmuland, resulting in a 3-2 loss. With the loss the UCT Terriers now sit in second place in the SBAAHL's Â鶹´«Ã½AV Division with a 12-4-0 record, 10 points behind the Prairie Storm who remain undefeated at 17-0-0.
The UCT Terriers opened the scoring late in the first period when Kaeden Taphorn put just his second goal of the season past Schmuland for a 1-0 Terriers lead after 20 minutes of play.
The 1-0 Terrier lead didn't live for long however, as the Prairie Storm got goals from Zach Kosteniuk and Tyson Manz just five minutes apart, giving the home side a 2-1 lead midway through the second period. Yorkton's McKenzie Welke brought the Terriers even with his 14th of the season less than two minutes after Manz made it 2-1 to send the game to the third frame tied at two.
The Prairie Storm retook the lead with less than five minutes to go when Colum McGauley beat Terriers goaltender Alex Geddes to make it 3-2. Try as they might the Terriers just could not solve Schmuland for their third goal resulting in a 3-2 win for the Prairie Storm.
Despite the loss, UCT Terriers Head Coach Graham Garrett felt that his team did everything right except put the puck in the net. "We outplayed them and we got in on the forecheck. It was a small arena so there wasn't a lot of room but we forechecked them very well. Unfortunately we didn't capitalize on our chances," said Garrett, continuing. "We outshot them, we outplayed them but we missed a couple of great opportunities to score and I think that was the difference in the hockey game."
Garrett also feels that his team will be motivated and a little angry about the back-to-back losses to the Prairie Storm, thinking that they will use the losses to fuel the fire and propel them to another impressive winning streak. "We've lost games before and then came back and won 10 in a row. I kind of expect us to go on a bit of a roll here again and be a little angry that we lost those two games and take it out on the next team that we play."
Next Action
The next team that the Yorkton Bantam 'AA' UCT Terriers play will be the Regina Monarchs (4-11-2), who they will visit on Thursday at the Al Ritchie Arena in Regina. The next home action for the UCT Terriers will be this Saturday December 21 when they host the visiting Saskatoon Stallions (8-7-1). Game time is set for 8:00p.m. at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
