Facing one of their biggest weekends of the regular season, the Moose Jaw WINMAR Warriors came away from things with flying colours.
As a result, they’ll now find themselves in action when the Sask Male AAA Hockey League post-season begins in just over a week’s time -- with the only question now where they’ll finish and who they’ll play in the first round.
The Warriors went into the weekend tied for seventh place with the Estevan Great North Bears and a single point up on the Saskatoon Contacts. With two games against the Bears, it was a chance to move clear of the competition, and thanks to a 5-4 shootout win Saturday and 6-3 win on Sunday, they’d do just that.
Moose Jaw now has a 20-19-3-0 record and sit two points up on Estevan in seventh place. The eighth-place Contacts have a single game remaining on their schedule and are three points back of the Warriors, meaning the local squad can finish no worse than eighth.
The Warriors looked to have things in control heading into the third period Saturday, as a pair of goals from Cooper Buhay and another from Noah Thul had given their crew a 4-2 lead. Estevan’s Thomas Ries and Talen Wallis would score to tie things up in the third period, though, eventually sending things to a shootout.
There, Keaton Lesperance scored the lone goal and Luke McKechnie stopped all three shooters he faced to secure the win.
Caleb Potter had Moose Jaw’s other goal in the first period, while Roan Burgess and Carter Onrait had Estevan’s other goals.
McKechnie turned aside 30 shots to earn the win, the Warriors had 30 shots on Kaden Perron.
There’d be no comeback in the second game of the weekend, as Moose Jaw once again took a 4-2 lead into the third period but this time made it stick.
Onrait made it a one-goal game early in the frame, but Jake Briltz scored an insurance marker with 6:30 to play and Jonah Pinel added an empty-net goal to finish things off.
Chase Peterson and Elias Haukneness scored goals three minutes apart to give the Warriors a 2-0 lead after the first, while Potter and Carson Deichert had their second-period markers.
Wallis and Onrait had Estevan’s goals in the second.
Ryan Bain turned aside 23 shots to earn the win, Perron had 34 saves at the other end of the ice.
The WINMAR Warriors will look to make up even more ground in the standings this weekend, as they can finish as high as sixth place depending on how things play out with Tisdale in their final three games.
Moose Jaw is in Yorkton for their final two games of the regular season Saturday and Sunday, with the playoffs set to begin the first weekend of March.
