It was a back-and-forth kind of game for the Westlock Midget Warriors, who traded goals, and penalties, with Vegreville last Friday, only to fall 5-4.
The Warriors hosted Vegreville Nov. 23 at the Rotary Spirit Centre taking the lead several times throughout, but coming up short during the last minutes of the game, despite outshooting the visitors 31-18.
The Warriors’ record stands at 3-9 and they sit eighth of nine teams in Tier 2 of the Northern Alberta Interlock League.
Vegreville opened the scoring three minutes into the game, but Westlock responded with a goal of its own from Keenan Fortier, assisted by Reid Schmidt. Vegreville then managed to put another goal behind Warriors goaltender Dominic Roberts, who saved 13 of the 17 shots he faced.
Besides the close score, the story of the game may have been the number of penalties racked up by both teams. Westlock was sent to the box 15 times, while Vegreville visited the sin bin 13 times throughout the game.
“I thought the game was competitive from one end to the other,” said coach Gil Dubrule.
“It was back and forth for the full 60 minutes and both teams got a little careless and took a lot of penalties.”
There were also a lot of big hits on either side, he said.
“The teams from the eastern Alberta tend to play a more physical game and Vegreville is one of those so we should have been ready for it. We competed at that level. We always expect an aggressive and tough game when you play those guys,” said Dubrule.
Westlock managed to tie up the game in the second period with goals from Addison Weir, assisted by Jaxson Snow, and another from Zaidyn Pipke, assisted by Dawson Petryshen.
It wasn’t long into the third period though when Vegreville tied the game up on a power play. However, less than a minute later, Jonah Bennett took the lead once again for the Warriors, with an assist from Addison Weir.
That was the end of the scoring for Westlock though as Vegreville managed to score a tying goal shortly after then the go-ahead goal with five minutes remaining.
“We’ve been focused on our forecheck,” said Dubrule. “We’ve also changed our lines a little bit so we have a quicker front end, there’s also a lot of line changes with shorter shifts. That seemed to work really well for this game.”
The hometown boys will lace up their skates once again next weekend as they host the six-team Ross Smith Memorial Tournament at the Rotary Spirit Centre.
