Playing at the Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre on Friday evening, the Barrhead Steelers captured their second win of the season with a 7-3 victory over the Devon Drillers.
Although based out of Barrhead, the 1660 League Tier 2 Steelers have seven Westlock hockey players amongst their roster of 20, including both goalies and five position players.
With the win, the team improves its record to 2-1-1, and ends a two-game winless skid.
“They played great after a shaky start,” said assistant coach Kolbi O’Brien.
The Steelers found themselves trailing 1-0 less than 13 minutes into the game, but managed to turn it around in the end.
“They pulled together in the second and third and came out with the win,” O’Brien said.
He added that once the players started to figure out what they had to do and what the coaches were asking them to do, they had success.
After falling behind 12:14 into the game, the Steelers tied the score at 15:04 of the first on Thomas Strawson’s goal, with assists from Brett Bujold and Tyson Chizma.
It was in the second when the Steelers really took it to Devon, notching four goals and surrendering only one.
Grayson Mills opened the scoring at 5:17, with Thomas Strawson and Grayson Mills earning the assists. Chizma scored only 10 seconds later, at 5:27. Bujold and Cole Walker recorded the assists.
The Drillers got one back at 10:58, but Bujold replied at 15:39 to push the Steeler’s lead to 4-2.
Brandt Morris rounded out the scoring in the period at 17:51, making it 5-2 entering third. Strawson and Jordan Smith earned the assists.
The third started with the Drillers cutting the lead to 5-3 with a goal at 5:36. However, that would be as close as they would get, as the Steelers shut them down the rest of the way, while adding two goals of their own in the final minute.
At 19:05, Corey Mercier scored on an assist from Eric Schmidt.
With 15 seconds remaining, Scott Westerlund put the finishing touches on the 7-3 win when he scored on a feed from Josh Perdaems.
O’Brien said he was glad to see the Steelers battle back in the last 30 minutes of the game after not battling as hard in the opening 30 minutes.
