The Midget Warriors posted a 1-2 week, playing three games in four days from Dec. 15 to 18.
After caging the Athabasca Hawks in a 8-3 blowout Dec. 15, the Warriors lost 7-1 in Drayton Valley the next day before returning to home ice Dec. 18 when the lost 15-2 to the Barrhead Bruins. The club now sits with a 3-9 record in the Northern Alberta Interlock League.
“We went hard to the net and things worked out, everyone worked together,” said Warrior AJ Balderston on the first game. “We need more pucks to the net, need to keep it in their zone and keep skating.”
Against Athabasca, the Warriors were quick out of the gate when Jaxon Snow and Brenden Gerig relayed a pass to Zaidyn Pipke to put Westlock up four minutes into the game. Athabasca evened the score in the last minute of the first and then doubled down 20 seconds later to close the period up 2-1.
However, the Warriors weren’t having any of that, as Balderston found Jonah Bennett just 20 seconds into the second period to tie the game up. Gerig fed a pass to Bennett seven minutes later to put Westlock up 3-2.
Westlock then proceeded to run away with the game in the third period, first with Bennett feeding a pass to Dawson Petryshen, who put the Warriors up 4-2. Athabasca responded with a quick goal of their own, but it was all Westlock from then on.
Pipke killed the Hawks momentum just seconds later with a goal of his own, then Bennett found Gerig to put the Warriors up 6-3, prompting an increasingly frustrated Athabasca player to start a brawl in front of his net.
Getting rough didn’t help the Hawks much though.
Snow fed a pass to Shay Chapotelle to score a powerplay goal then Bennett fed a pass to Reid Schmidt in the last minute to seal the Hawks fate.
“Both teams had short benches tonight, so we played most of the game with one guy high — keeping one player at centre ice for most of the game — to conserve energy and in the third we have more juice than they did,” said head coach Gil Dubrule.
“We were able to rest one guy even though he was on the ice.”
The club’s final home game of 2018 goes Dec. 21 versus Camrose at the Rotary Spirit Centre.
