The Westlock Senior AA Warriors have maintained their 0.500 win percentage in the North Central Hockey League after a win and a loss last weekend.
Fresh off a three-week break for Christmas and New Year, the Warriors shook off the rust Friday night to knock off the Whitecourt Wild 7-4 in front of a cheering home crowd.
A short bench on Saturday night, however, left the Warriors struggling to a 4-3 loss in Rocky Mountain House against the Rams, leaving Westlock with a 7-7-0 record on the year.
Coach Joe Kuhar said despite the disappointing loss on Saturday night, the team is very confident they’ll make a strong showing once the playoffs come around.
“Going forward we should have our full roster for the final four games that we’ve got, and I think we’re not too concerned at this point in time,” he said.
Kicking off the final third of their 2013-2014 season on Jan. 3, the Warriors overcame an early deficit to come out on top.
“We were rusty in the first period,” Kuhar said. “Our passes weren’t sharp, but we picked it up once we got back to our routine.”
Once the second and third periods rolled around, the Warriors had seen their chemistry return after subsiding somewhat with the long layoff.
The Warriors found themselves down 1-0 four minutes into the game, but would tie things 1-1 before the end of the first period.
In the second, the Warriors took an early 2-1 lead, only to see the Wild come back to tie the game 2-2.
Following that tying goal, the Warriors opened the floodgates, scoring the next three goals of the period to go up 5-2 after 40 minutes.
The third period saw the teams trade goals. Westlock took a 6-2 lead, but Whitecourt scored to make it 6-3. Another Westlock goal made it 7-3, but the Wild would not go quietly, scoring the final goal of the game to make the final 7-4.
Kuhar said the way the Warriors played frustrated the Wild, who started getting pretty chippy.
“At the end, we were playing to end the game,” he said, adding he was hoping the Wild wouldn’t do something to injure any of his players.
Saturday night against the Rams was a tough game for the Warriors, who were short-benched against a team Kuhar said they should have beaten.
The teams were tied 1-1 after the first period, with the Rams pulling ahead 3-2 in the second and holding on for a 4-3 win after three periods.
The short bench, as well as playing games two nights in a row, took a toll on the Warriors.
“We didn’t play our best game that we normally would, but it’s kind of tough playing back to back,” he said. “That’s what we find, anyway.”
Westlock is still in good playoff position, however, sitting in the middle of the pack of the north division. Nonetheless, Kuhar said there’s a lot of work to do going into the last four games of the season.
“We definitely have some urgency to make sure we’ve got a good spot in the playoffs,” he said. “We don’t want to just limp in.”
The next action for the Warriors will be this Friday night in Athabasca against the Aces.