The goose egg is broken and now there’s some excitement in the locker room of the North Central Midget AA Bulls.
The Bulls put their first victory of the season on the board Sunday in Lac La Biche when they hosted the Whitecourt Wolverines and doubled them up by a score of 6-3.
It wasn’t the best of starts for the Bulls though, allowing Whitecourt to take a 2-0 lead less than five minutes into the contest.
Nicholas Roth, who started in net for the Bulls, was pulled at this point in favour of Scott Danyluk, but head coach Jody Tangedal wasn’t pinning the bad start on him.
However, the goaltending change clearly woke the rest of the team up and they began to play a much better team game.
A powerplay goal with less than a minute to go in the first period by Treyton Tangedal with assists to Shane Witney and Tyson Tymo generated a burst of momentum that carried through the intermission.
As the Bulls began to carry much of the play in the middle stanza, they earned another powerplay which led to Tymo tying the game up, with an assist to Iver Steffes, near the seven and a half minute mark.
Five minutes later, the Bulls would take the lead courtesy of Tangedal’s second of the game with assists going to Rylan Durell and Steffes.
Whitecourt got that one back less than a minute later, but the Bulls continued the offensive onslaught and that led to the eventual game winning goal by Shaun Funk with just under five minutes gone in the third period. Orrie Wood and Steffes earned assists on the goal.
Alvin Halter would give the Bulls a two-goal lead with less than six minutes left to play, with assists to Derek Greene and Lance Kotovich, before Funk put away his second goal of the game, assisted by Tor Tangedal and Wood, into an empty net with just a minute remaining to seal the deal for the Bulls.
“Our defence was outstanding and the entire team showed a level of maturity to come back after getting down two goals very early in the game,” said Jody Tangedal.
“It’s been a tough season for us until now and the hope is we can carry this positive momentum forward.”
The Bulls also took on the Sturgeon Mustangs in Morinville on Saturday and, despite playing a solid game, lost 5-1. Funk had the Bulls goal.
Tangedal explained his team ran out of gas after losing one of the four defencemen that were dressed for the game.
The Bulls close out the month this weekend with games in Camrose Saturday and St. Albert Sunday.
