It was a battle of the top two teams in the Â鶹´«Ã½AV Saskatchewan Minor Hockey League Peewee division this past weekend as the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers traveled to Weyburn to take on the Youngfellow Wings in back-to-back road games at Weyburn's Crescent Point Place.
Game one saw the powerful Terriers offence gun down the Wings 10-5, however game two was a different story as Weyburn's defence rose to the occasion resulting in a 3-2 Weyburn win, halting the Terriers winning streak at nine games.
On Saturday Weyburn opened the scoring with 16:38 remaining in the first period when, with Chace Sperling in the penalty box for hooking, Ethan Ernst beat Spencer Welke for a 1-0 lead.
TheWeyburn lead lasted a total of 3:07 however, as Ryder Korczak tied the game with his sixth of the season and first of three on the night. Ethan Evanovich made it 2-1 Yorkton just over two minutes with his ninth of the season before Kishaun Gervais upped the Terriers lead to two with his 11th of the campaign to make it 3-1.
Cordell Larson cut the Terrier lead to one with 4:59 left in the period but Evanovich's second of the game gave the Terriers back their two goal cushion. Ryder Korczak rounded out the first period scoring with his second of the game on the powerplay to give the visiting Terriers a 5-2 lead after 20 minutes of play.
Kaeden Korczak made it 6-2 just 30 seconds into the second period with his 14th goal of the season and the route was on as the Terriers added two more in the second and two more in the third for a 10-5 victory.
While Yorkton's offence was the key in Saturday's 10-5 win over Weyburn, Weyburn's defence was the key to the game on Sunday as the Weyburn Youngfellow Wings edged out the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers 3-2 to keep themselves in the race for first place.
Had Yorkton been able to win they'd have been in the driver's seat for first place.
Now, however, they have to do their job and hope Weyburn stumbles just a little bit down the stretch. "Right now they've got five games remaining and we've got four and just depending on those last ones, if it came down to it and we both won all of our games we'd be tied and they'd clinch first place due to head-to-head," said Sherring Gold Terriers head coach Chad Korczak. "It would basically just mean home ice all the way through for them. That's the difference between first and second, but we'd like to take first so we can have home ice all the way."
While both teams appear to be the class of the league, both Yorkton and Weyburn will have a fight on their hands in the form of their rivals, the Melville Millionaires for Yorkton, the Estevan Sherritt Coal Bruins for Weyburn.
For Korczak, the two games against Melville are two that his team will not be overlooking. "You know how that is, having your arch enemy that close. Weyburn has something like three with Estevan which, you know, it doesn't matter if you are first or last place, when you're playing your arch rival anything can happen. We'll see what happens on both ends for us and hope that Estevan can knock off Weyburn."
Next action
The next action for the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers will be this Thursday as they travel to Regina to take part in the 22nd annual Regina Peewee Classic tournament. Yorkton will face the Foothills Bisons from Alberta before taking on the Lumsden Lions and the Humboldt Broncos in round robin play.
The Sherring Gold Terriers look to become the back-to-back champions for the second time (they won it in 1995 and 1996) and make it to the finals for the third consecutive season.
