The Westlock Bantam Warriors mounted an impressive comeback in the third period to tie the first-place Calmar Cobras 4-4 at the Jubilee Arena Saturday night.
If not for a five-minute major penalty in the second period during which the Warriors gave up three goals, the game certainly would have been a victory for the home team.
“We gave up three real quick ones on that five-minute power play,” coach Bill Gregoire said. “It shook our bench up a bit.”
The game started out leaning more toward Calmar, as the Cobras earned the first point of the game early in the first period. The Warriors came back to tie things up at the end of the period, with Samuel Milner’s shot finding the back of the net.
Although the goals were even that period, the Warriors outshot their competitors by a margin of 14-6.
The Warriors got into trouble during the second period, taking a costly penalty that saw Jonathan Truckey ejected from the game after kicking an opposing player. Westlock gave up three goals, leaving them down 4-1 going into the third period.
Things definitely turned around in the third, however, with the Warriors generating more than a dozen good scoring opportunities over 20 minutes.
Daneel Lategan slipped one past the Cobras’ goaltender within the first five minutes of the period, but most of the rest of the period was full of disappointment as Cobras’ goalie stood on his head to make some impressive saves.
The perseverance paid off, however, and Madison Vekved brought the Warriors with one goal with just two minutes left.
After tripping penalty to the Cobras put the Warriors on the power play in the last minute of the game, Andrew van de Ligt scored the game-tying goal.
Captain Steve Mayowski said the team was able to rally itself during the second intermission and came back in the third period with a renewed energy.
“We just kind of treated it like it was the first period,” he said. “We figured we could come back because we won that first period against them.”
Gregoire noted the game could end up being a turning point for the team, which has had its fair share of struggles this year, because of such a strong performance against the first-place team.
“We dominated these guys the whole game,” he said.
