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AAA Warriors pick up third-straight win as defensive play continues to shine

Warriors score three in first, build five goal lead on way to 5-1 victory over Prince Albert Mintos at Mosaic Place
The Moose Jaw AAA Warriors have been looking for consistency all season, and it appears they’ve found it.

Facing the Prince Albert Mintos on Sunday afternoon, the Warriors put together a defensive clinic for the third-straight game, extending their shutout streak to nearly 165 minutes before the Mintos scored late in the second period.

The lone goal would matter little, though, as the Warriors led 5-0 at the time and would go on to a 5-1 victory in Saskatchewan Male AAA Hockey League action at Mosaic Place.

The win came on the heels of a 2-0 win over Swift Current on Wednesday and 2-0 victory over the Regina Pat Canadians Friday.

“We’ll just keep working at it every day, but now it’s not just one game on, one game off,” said Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber of the team’s play as of late. “We’ve been pretty consistent the last three to five games, and I feel like it’s coming. The guys are really working, every team takes a while to come along, but it seems like we’re getting it and we’re looking forward to keeping this going.”

The win over the Mintos saw the Warriors improve to 15-8-0-0 on the season and vault into fourth place in the 12-team league, three points back of the Notre Dame Hounds and one up on the Saskatoon Blazers.

The key the last few games has been a focus on defensive responsibilities, especially when it comes to play outside of their zone.

“We’ve really concentrated on our neutral zone and our d-men staying up and I really think we’ve done a great job with it, we’ve turned a lot of pucks over and our transition game has been really good,” Weisgerber said. “The guys have played really well and have played hard and the results are there because of it. “

Jake Briltz, Daxin Peterson and Brady Wilson all scored for the Warriors in the first period, with the latter’s goal coming with 10 seconds remaining in the frame.

The Warriors made it 4-0 only 11 seconds into the second period, with Liam Fitzpatrick scoring on the power play, and Connor Miller made it a five-goal lead at the 7:17 mark.

Matthew Cudmore scored for Prince Albert a little over a minute later to snap Ethan Fechter’s shutout bid.

Fechter would close out the contest with 21 saves for the Warriors, while his teammates fired 36 shots at Jayden Kraus.

Orin Olson and Rowan Calvert each had two assists in the game.

“It was obviously a great week and against three teams who were above us in the standings, so it was really nice to be able to come out and play like we did, our work ethic and our attention to detail with our systems and our execution has been really good,” Weisgerber said. “We’re happy, but we know we have five tough games on the road here before Christmas, but things went really well this week for sure.”

The Warriors are back in action Tuesday when they travel to Swift Current for  rematch with the Legionnaires.

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