Pages
Monday, November 21, 2011
Warriors Suffer Hard Loss to Brandon
The Moose Jaw Warriors and Brandon Wheat Kings wrapped up 3-in-3 weekends Sunday at Mosaic Place with a wild game. Brandon erased a three goal third period deficit to hand the tribe a 7-6 overtime loss.
Quinton Howden put the tribe on the board at 13:48 of the first period with his eighth of the year, Torrin White's fifth of the year four minutes later made it 2-0. Brandon's Tyrel Seaman scored a 4-on-4 goal with 1:20 left in the first.
Brandon's Eric Roy and Alessio Bertaggia scored in the first half of the second to put the visitors up by one. However, the Warriors came storming back with four goals to take a 6-3 lead.
Brett Lyon scored on the power play at 12:59, 16 second later Andrew Johnson made it 4-3 Moose Jaw, Sam Fioretti made it 5-3 at 15:55, and Johnson's second of the period at 17:06 finished off the Moose Jaw run of goals in the second.
The Wheat Kings came storming out of the gates in the third, goals from Mark Stone and Brendan Walker in the first two minutes made it a one goal game. Then at 10:39 Bertaggia was hauled down breaking in on Luke Siemens, and the referee handed him a penalty shot, which he capitalized, tying the game at six.
The teams went back and forth the rest of the third period, but neither was able to get the game winner, so the game went into overtime. At 1:40 of extra time, 20 year old Paul Ciarelli broke the Warriors hearts, completing the Brandon comeback.
Andrew Johnson led the Warriors with two goals and four points; Torrin White, Quinton Howden, and Brett Lyon had a goal and two points each; Dylan McIlrath had two assists.
Wheat Kings forward Mark Stone had a goal and four points and was named the first star, he talked to Marc Smith in the post game show and says they never lost their confidence.
"I think we're one of the highest scoring teams in the league. We knew that we could score three as long as we put the effort forward."
Warriors captain Kendall McFaull says the loss is a tough pill to swallow. "We had them right were we wanted them going into the third, and then we threw it away. (Luke) Siemens kept us in the game and all we had to do was shut it down in the third. We got away from our game plan in the third and it cost us."
"When we were going we were chipping pucks past them, we were playing in their end and tiring them out. We kind of got away from that and were turning pucks over in the neutral zone. We knew they were a good transition team, and they showed us tonight," said McFaull.
The captain says they learned a valuable lesson. "I think we have to learn to close teams out. We have to have the character and veteran leadership to shut those games down, those are points we can't be giving away."
The game wrapped up the Warriors second straight 3-in-3 weekend, and assistant coach Trevor Weisgerber says they'll give the guys today off to rest.
"They need a rest, it was a tough weekend, we'll get ready Tuesday for Calgary coming in Wednesday," said Weisgerber. "The 3-in-3's are tough on the body, the guys did a pretty good job, it's just to bad we gave this one up tonight."
The Warriors are now 14-7-2 and start the week tied with Medicine Hat for fifth in the Eastern Conference. They're one back of fourth place Red Deer and three back of third place Brandon, they sit four up on Regina.
The team has today off, Tuesday they'll be back at Mosaic Place to get ready for Wednesday's battle against Calgary. Coming up on the weekend the tribe will once again tango with the Wheat Kings, they have a home and home starting Friday in Brandon.
Sunday WHL scores;
Brandon 7 v 6 Moose Jaw, overtime
Saskatoon 6 v 5 Calgary
Kootenay 4 v 1 Vancouver
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment