The Yorkton Harvest had a happy bus ride home from Moose Jaw this past weekend. They captured a win and a tie in their back-to-back games against the Generals, who sat seven points ahead of the Harvest prior to this weekend.
"I'm very happy that we got three points out of our road trip," says Harvest head coach Jeff Odgers. "It's always good when you can get three out of four points on the road against a team higher than you in the standings."
The first game against the Generals was closer than the 29-18 shot total in favour of Moose Jaw alludes to. The Harvest kept their opponents to the outside, not letting them get strong shots on puck-stopper Spencer Bomboir.
"I think the game was very close," says Odgers, a former NHL player. "We shared scoring chances back and forth between the game. We also played strong defensively and had solid goaltending from Bomboir."
The Generals struck first with an unassisted goal from Cohen Yano in the second period.
The Harvest quickly responded, though. Leading goal-scorer Lynnden Pastachuk potted one with just over five minutes left in the second, tying the game at 1-1, which was the final score.
Yorkton came out flying in the second matchup, outshooting the Generals 36-18 in their 3-2 victory.
Landon Nicholl had a monster second period for Yorkton, netting two goals in the first 10 minutes.
"He doesn't score a lot, but when he does they are usually clutch goals," says Odgers on Nicholl. "He put pucks on net and jumped in on the rush a couple times and it really paid off. He was a huge contributor for us this past weekend."
The Generals refused to say die. Donovan Neuls scored late in the second, followed by a Ben Duppereault marker in the first-half of the third to tie the game up at two.
But Harvest's Eric Meyer played hero, notching the game-winning goal with less than five minutes left in the contest.
Yorkton now sits one-point back of the Saskatoon Blazers for the final playoff spot in the Saskatchewan AAA Midget Hockey League. Their successful weekend also put them up by three points on the Swift Current Legionnaires, who sit behind them in 10th place.
The Harvest wrap up their first-half of the season by meeting the Prince Albert Mintos in town this Sunday and travel to Wilcox on Tuesday to play the Notre Dame Argos.
Odgers hopes his club will go into the Christmas back in the playoff picture.
"Prince Albert has really found their game since the last time we beat them, so we will have to be prepared to play a very good team," says Odgers on the second-place Mintos. "Notre Dame is a team very similar to us. They battle hard and are close to us in the standings. We hope we can grab some points out of those two games and sneak back into the top eight.
