The Yorkton Gardon Crushers were handed their third loss of the 2015/16 麻豆传媒AV Sask Female Hockey League (SSFHL) Bantam 鈥楢鈥� season last Wednesday, falling to the Regina Cougars by a score of 5-4.
The Crushers 鈥� Yorkton Minor Hockey鈥檚 only all-female hockey team 鈥� found themselves down early to the second place Cougars, as the host Regina squad put up four goals in the first period for a 4-0 lead after 20 minutes. 鈥淭hey might have had a little bit of Christmas rust or something like that,鈥� said Crushers head coach Fred Schrader on his team鈥檚 slow start to their first game after the holiday break. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 have as strong a first period as they鈥檙e capable of, that鈥檚 for sure.鈥�
The second period saw the Crushers chip away at the Regina lead. First Sierra Meroniuk scored her 13th goal of the season to make it 4-1.
Just over one minute later and Yorkton made it a two goal game as defenceman Lexi Fenske stepped in from the point and snapped a wrist shot past Regina goaltender Riel Gauthier to make it 4-2 after 40 minutes.
Yorkton came out firing in the third period, peppering Gauthier with shots, however they couldn鈥檛 find a way to solve the Cougar net minder until late in the period when Austen Dubreuil threw the puck on net from a sharp angle that somehow found its way through Gauthier to make it 4-3.
The Crushers then tied the game when, with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker, Dubreuil won the faceoff and got the puck back to Fenske. The offensively gifted defenceman then let loose a howitzer that beat Gauthier top shelf to even the game at four with 50 seconds left.
The tie was short-lived however, as the Cougars responded just eight seconds later when Yorkton goaltender Haley Schrader misread the Emily Hein dump-in resulting in the Cougars regaining the lead at 5-4.
The fluke goal proved to be the deciding marker, as the Gardon Crushers fell 5-4.
Following the game coach Schrader told Yorkton This Week that the Crushers need to be able to play an entire 60 minutes and do so with aggression. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 get away with playing 40 minutes in this league. We have to come out and be ready to play and we didn鈥檛 do that today,鈥� mentioned Schrader, continuing, 鈥淚 think the first period was the difference in the game and that鈥檚 where we came out rusty.
鈥淲e were timid, we weren鈥檛 our aggressive, normal selves and we need to get back to that for an entire game to be successful.鈥�
Next up
The Gardon Crushers (10-3-1) took on the Regina Cougars (12-4-0) on Saturday, however results were not available at press time. The next action for the Gardon Crushers will be Friday when they host the Estevan Power Dodge Chargers at Theodore for a 6:30p.m. puck drop. The Crushers then host the Swift Current Colts on Sunday at 3:00p.m. in Theodore.
