The Prairie Hockey Academy Cougars turned in a pair of solid performances to open this weekend’s Lorne Molleken Elite U17 Prep Prairie Classic, even if they didn’t quite get the two wins they were hoping for.
PHA opened the event with an 8-1 win over Indigenous Sports Academy on Thursday night at the Barkman Arena in Caronport before dropping a 4-3 overtime decision to Okanagan Hockey Academy Black on Friday morning.
That puts the Cougars in a good position to reach the playoff round, with the top four teams from the six-team event advancing to the semifinals beginning Saturday evening.
The tournament is named after former NHL and WHL coach Lorne Molleken, who has worked as a coach and advisor for the PHA programs since their inception.
Things couldn’t have gone better for the Cougars in their opener, as after taking a 1-0 lead out of the first period they’d score four goals in the second and add another three in the third to take the comfortable win.
Griffin Horne led the way for PHA with a hat trick while Rylan Aulin put up a goal and five points and Austin Gammon contributed four assists. Mason Smith, Kale Pratte, Hudson Thiessen and Grant Gliege all had single markers, while A.J. Paulsen picked up a pair of helpers.
Rowan Albert scored the lone goal for ISA.
Georgi Milanov turned aside 20 shots in the win, while Jack Chauncy faced 58 shots in the ISA goal.
While the final result wasn’t what they wanted, PHA had control of much of the game against OHA Edmonton Black, taking leads late into the second and third periods before OHA found a way to tie things up.
Hudson Thiessen had given PHA a 2-1 lead with 1:55 to play in the second, only for Calum Gieseq to tie the game with a power play goal with three seconds remaining.
Kane Domres then gave the Cougars a 3-2 edge midway through the second, but OHA once again found the tying goal, this time when Gavyn Dion got the job done with 3:53 left in regulation.
That set the stage for overtime, where Ben Shaw scored the winner for Edmonton with 17 seconds remaining.
Shaw also scored in the first period, while Jaxson Nichol had PHA’s other marker.
Gieseq capped his morning with a goal and four points.
Other scores Thursday saw Notre Dame defeat OHA Black 3-2 in a shootout and the Lloydminster Lancers defeat OHA Prep 5-4 in overtime.
Notre Dame edged OHA Prep 5-4 in the afternoon game Friday, with ISA taking on Lloydminster in the evening.
Saturday action sees Notre Dame facing ISA at 8 a.m., Prairie Hockey battling OHA Prep at 10:30 a.m. and OHA Black facing Lloydminster at 1 p.m.
Semifinals are at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., followed by the fifth-sixth place game at 9 a.m. Sunday and the championship final at 12 p.m.
All games are at the Barkman Arena in Caronport and you can find all the results online at tournaments.prairiehockey.ca.
