The Yorkton RawTec Maulers proved that it鈥檚 manly to wear pink this past weekend as they hooked up with the Saskatoon Contacts for a pair of home games during the 鈥楶aint the Rink Pink鈥� homestand, handing the Contacts a 6-4 loss on Saturday before losing 4-2 on Sunday.
The .500 weekend leaves the Maulers with a record of 8-2-1 and 17 points, one back of the league leading Moose Jaw Canucks (8-1-2) and two ahead of the third place Regina Pat Canadians (7-4-1).
Prince Albert (7-3-0) and Tisdale (6-2-2) are tied for fourth with 14 points each while the Notre Dame Hounds (5-4-1) sit in sixth with 11 points.
Battlefords (4-3-2) is in seventh with 10 points while Beardy鈥檚 (4-5-1) and the Saskatoon Contacts (4-7-1) sit in eighth and ninth with nine points.
Swift Current (4-5-0) is in tenth with eight points, the Saskatoon Blazers (3-6-0) are in 11th with six points while the Notre Dame Argos remain winless on the season with a record of 0-7-0.
On Saturday the RawTec Maulers rode the hot hands of the line of Damian Bentz, Brett Kemp and Derrick Budz to a 6-4 win over the Contacts.
Both Bentz and Budz had four points each with Bentz registering a hattrick and an assist while Budz picked up one goal and three assists.
Meanwhile Kemp scored once and assisted on four others for a five point night while Jordan Schmuland picked up his league-leading sixth win of the season stopping 34-of-38 Saskatoon shots.
Responding for the Contacts on the night were Brody Vogel with two goals and Tyler Heidt and Dino Antoniadis with one each, while Jordan Frey and Isaac LaBelle split time between the Saskatoon pipes with Frey taking the loss, stopping 15-of-19 Yorkton shots before giving way to LaBelle who turned aside 12-of-14 in 20 minutes of work.
Following the game Yorkton RawTec Mauler head coach Graham Garrett said that the impressive game by the line of Bentz, Kemp and Budz is really just an example of a group of players with solid chemistry and a bit of a chip on their shoulders. 鈥淓verybody talks about lines that have chemistry and those three guys right now have the best chemistry in the league. There is a reason they鈥檙e one, two, three in scoring and that鈥檚 because they use their speed and their puck skills to their advantage. They force the other team to turn pucks over and then they put them in the back of the net,鈥� offered Garrett, adding that the fact that they all have something to prove also helps in their production levels. 鈥淏entz is coming back and wanting to have a better season, Brett Kemp is wanting to come up and show that he can play at this level and wanting to move on to the next level and Budz is just being that hard working guy that is now getting the payoff for all of his hard work.
鈥淵ou put them all together and they all seem to have something to prove and they鈥檙e proving it right now and they鈥檙e the best line in the league right now.鈥�
A day later and the best line in the league was separated, as Kemp as well as Carson Miller, Kaleb Bulych and Keenan and Kaeden Taphorn were off to Calgary to represent Saskatchewan at the 2015 Western Canada U16 Challenge Cup.
The visiting Contacts took advantage of a couple of new bodies on the Maulers鈥� bench, scoring 18 seconds into the game when Heidt tallied his second of the weekend for a 1-0 Saskatoon lead.
Quinton Ong鈥檚 first of two in the game made it 2-0 for Saskatoon with 5:20 left in the period, but a late Mauler power play goal by Bentz cut the Saskatoon lead in half just before the end of the first period.
RawTec Mauler A.P. call up Cole Rathgeber scored his first goal of the season six minutes into the second period to draw the Maulers even but a Chance Adrian goal with 7:16 left in the period made it 3-2 Saskatoon.
Ong鈥檚 second of the game late in the second period made it 4-2 and proved to be the final goal of the game as the two teams skated to a scoreless third period.
Alex Geddes shouldered the loss for the Maulers stopping six-of-nine Contact shots before being replaced by Schmuland with 25 minutes left in the game.聽 Schmuland stopped 10-of-11 shots in relief while Isaac LaBelle picked up the win brushing aside 24-of-26 Yorkton attempts.
Throughout the weekend the RawTec Maulers raised 48-hundred dollars for the Canadian Cancer Society through raffles and 50/50.
Next up
The next action for the Yorkton RawTec Maulers (8-2-1) will be tonight (Wednesday) when they host the Notre Dame Argos (0-7-0). Game time is set for 8:00p.m. at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
