It was a battle of the top two teams in the SBAAHL's Â鶹´«Ã½AV Division on Sunday afternoon in Yorkton as the first place Prairie Storm visited Yorkton's Kinsmen Arena to do battle with the high powered Yorkton UCT Terriers.
Both teams carried impressive winning streaks into the game as Yorkton, who also boasted the league's top offence, had won their last 10 games while the Prairie Storm and their league best defence (22 goals against) were undefeated at 15-0-0 on the season meaning something had to give.
Unfortunately for the Terriers it was their streak that gave way as their powerful offence simply could not find a way to solve Prairie Storm's talented netminder Dean McNabb resulting in a 2-0 shutout loss.
The game was scoreless through one period despite The UCT Terriers dominating the play throughout the first. However McNabb kept his team in the game, turning aside wave after wave of Terriers offence.
The Prairie Storm opened the scoring midway through the second period against the flow of play when Tanner Manz accepted a pass from twin brother Tyson and snapped the puck past Terriers goalie Alex Geddes for a 1-0 Prairie Storm lead. The goal seemed to deflate the Terriers a little bit while it fired up the Prairie Storm as they began to carry the play for the rest of the second period.
The Prairie Storm momentum carried through to the third period and with 4:43 remaining in the game Drew Wilde put the game away when he put a fluttering puck past Geddes to make it 2-0 for the visitors and give the Prairie Storm their 16th straight victory.
Although his team lost, UCT Terriers head coach Graham Garrett felt his boys deserved a better fate. "In the second period I think we had the puck behind their goalie three or four times and it squirted out to the corner instead of into the net," said Garrett, continuing, "We've got to find those pucks, stay determined and find a way to score. We didn't today, but we have to in the next game."
Garrett also gave credit to the Prairie Storm for sticking to their game plan; something he said his team failed to do, especially in the third period." I thought we played really good in the first and second. We out chanced them but in the third we came out of our game plan. We didn't get pucks deep, we didn't get our fore-check going and it didn't allow us to create any positive momentum and on the flip side they were winning that battle and they were getting pucks in deep and they created their own momentum."
The 2-0 shutout loss snaps the Terriers 10 game winning streak. It's also just the first shutout loss they've suffered this season, however, they do have a chance at revenge this Wednesday when they take on the same Prairie Storm team in Pilot Butte.
Saturday's action
The Yorkton Bantam UCT Terriers were also in action on Saturday at the Farrell Agencies Arena when they took on the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors in SBAAHL action.
Yorkton's offence got going quickly in the first period. Carson Miller put the home side up by one just 32 seconds into the game when he put his 15th goal of the season past Warriors goalie Hunter Bosch. Nicholas Demchuk made it 2-0 just seven minutes later with his fifth of the year but the Warriors responded four minutes later when, with Carson Welke in the penalty box for interference, Dylan Jones beat Terriers goalie Austin Hilderman for his first of three on the night to make it 2-1. The UCT Terriers regained their two goal cushion with 56 seconds left in the first frame thanks to Reid Perepeluk's sixth goal of the season to make it 3-1 Yorkton after 20 minutes of play.
The Terriers made it 4-1 when Tyler Stratechuk beat Bosch for his seventh of the season and it looked like the UCT Terriers were well on their way to their 10th straight victory. Someone forgot to tell the Moose Jaw Warriors that, however, as the Warriors put three pucks past Hilderman in quick succession to make it 4-4 after two periods.
Yorkton retook the lead and the momentum 1:58 into the final period with Keanan Sperling's fifth goal of the season to make it 5-4. The Terriers then put the game on ice when, with 2:21 remaining in the game, Carson Welke put the sixth Terriers goal on the board with his 13th of the season to make the final score 6-4 in favour of the Yorkton Bantam UCT Terriers.
