The Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers of the SSMHL Peewee Division hosted their Highway 10 rivals on Wednesday, December 3 at the Farrell Agencies Arena in what proved to be a very competitive match up that was eventually won by Yorkton 5-3.
The win is the seventh of the season for the Sherring Gold Terriers and gives them sole possession of second place for the time being with a record of 7-1-0 for 14 points, five back of league leading Swift Current, who at 8-0-3 have played three more games than Yorkton and one point up on third place Moose Jaw (5-3-3).
Weyburn sits in fourth place with a record of 2-3-1 for five points while Estevan鈥檚 1-7-2 record gives them fifth place and four points.
Melville rounds out the six-team league with just one point by virtue of a 0-9-1 record.
A scoreless first period saw both teams trade chances only to have Yorkton鈥檚 Kael DePape and Melville鈥檚 Dominic Orr stand tall between the pipes to keep the game tied at zero after 20 minutes.
But while the goaltenders were the story in the first period, offence was the name of the game in the second as Yorkton captain Jackson Berezowski first made it 1-0 just 43 seconds into the game before upping the Terrier lead to two just four minutes later with his fifth and sixth goals of the season.
Dawson Springer cut the Terrier lead to one with just over 12 minutes remaining in the frame, however Yorkton鈥檚 Josh Haczkewicz regained the two goal Yorkton lead when his third goal of the season eluded Orr and found twine to make it 3-1.
However Melville would pull to within one before the end of the period when Colby Lubachowski beat DePape to move Melville to within one at 3-2.
The third period saw Berezowski record the hattrick with his third goal of the night just 3:50 into the frame. Berezowski then set up Tanner Hoffman for Yorkton鈥檚 fifth goal of the game with just over six minutes remaining to make it 5-2 for the Sherring Gold Terriers.
A late Melville marker by Springer made it 5-3, but that was as close as the visitors would get as the Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers, led by a four point night from their captain, prevailed 5-3.
DePape picked up his fourth win of the season while Melville鈥檚 Orr shouldered the loss, his fifth in as many games.
But while the Sherring Gold Terriers did indeed pick up the victory, head coach Ryan Hoffman believes his team failed to capitalize on a plethora of scoring chances resulting in a score line much closer than it should have been. 鈥淚 thought we controlled the play for a lot of the game but we鈥檙e still struggling a little bit to finish some of our chances,鈥� suggested Hoffman. 鈥淲e had some golden opportunities in tight, right in the slot and we didn鈥檛 capitalize but we鈥檙e working at it and we鈥檙e improving a little bit, but we鈥檝e still got a little ways to go there, too.鈥�
One player that Hoffman feels the rest of the team should look at when trying to figure out how to capitalize on their chances is team captain Jackson Berezowski, as evidenced by his three goal performance in the 5-3 win. 鈥淗e鈥檚 our captain, he鈥檚 one of our leaders and it鈥檚 not uncommon for him to do things like that,鈥� offered Hoffman on Berezowski鈥檚 four point night. 鈥淗e really played well tonight. He鈥檚 a real good skater and a real smart, talented kid.
鈥淗e made his chances count tonight.鈥�
Next action
The Yorkton Sherring Gold Terriers (7-1-0) will continue their busy December schedule this upcoming weekend when they welcome the Estevan Westmoreland Bruins (1-7-2) to town for a pair of games. Game one is set for Friday at 7:15p.m. while Game two is scheduled to begin at 2:15p.m.
Both games will take place at the Yorkton Kinsmen Arena.
