The Yorkton Bantam UCT Terriers have completed step two of their road to the SBAAHL playoff championship by sweeping aside their first round opponent, the seventh ranked Moose Jaw Warriors, two-games-to-none in the best of three SBAAHL first round with a convincing win on Tuesday, February 25.
The UCT Terriers ran roughshod over Moose Jaw, hammering the Warriors 14-3 at the Bert Hunt Arena in Moose Jaw to take the series.
Yorkton's high powered offence put up five goals in the first period and five more in the second before tallying four more in the third.
Derrick Budz led the UCT Terriers offence with three goals and two assists while McKenzie Welke also had five points on the night with two goals and three assists.
Three other UCT Terriers had two goal performances as well. Carson Welke, Carson Miller and Reid Perepeluk all found the back of the net twice while Kaeden Taphorn, Tyler Stratechuk and Cody Dubas all chipped in with a goal apiece.
Alex Geddes registered the win, his second of the playoffs, stopping 21 of 24 Moose jaw shots.
The win, the UCT Terriers seventh in a row dating back to the regular season, came in large part due to their ability to stick to the game plan.
But what, exactly, was that game plan?
UCT Terriers head coach Graham Garrett said that the game plan heading into game two was simple. "We just had to go back to dominating them in game two and we did that," offered Garrett. "Then we scored four goals in the first ten minutes and then just kind of cruised our way through from there."
Garrett also acknowledged the fact that it didn't seem to matter that Moose Jaw had the last change; something that usually favours the home side. "Yeah they moved their lines around but it didn't matter," said Garrett, continuing, "We had all of our forward lines moving and defensively they just weren't able to handle us.
"Our speed on the attack, our skill, it didn't matter what their forward and defensive line ups were; their defence just wasn't able to hand our speed."
Step three
The third step for the Yorkton Bantam UCT Terriers comes in the form of their second round playoff opponent and Highway 10 rivals the fifth ranked Melville Millionaires.
Both Yorkton and Melville swept their first round opponent; Yorkton crushed Moose Jaw while Melville's strong defence shut down the fourth ranked Estevan TS&M Bruins, who boasted the SBAAHL's seventh best regular season offence.
While Melville's defence is solid, it was the fifth best in the regular season, Yorkton's offence is every bit as strong. Something that Garrett realized quickly. "Well the matchup again is an offence against defence type of thing," said the Yorkton bench boss. "But as long as we're playing the way we need to defensively and not give them any easy opportunities, then our offence should be able to put pucks in the net."
The Yorkton Bantam UCT Terriers hosted the Melville Millionaires last night in Game One of their best of three Â鶹´«Ã½AV Division semi-final series last night at the Farrell Agencies Arena however statistics were not available at press time.
The next action for the Yorkton Bantam UCT Terriers will be Friday March seventh when they visit the Melville Millionaires for a 6:00p.m. start at Melville's Horizon Credit Union Centre.
