The local squad ended up dropping a pair of 4-3 decisions in a home-and-home against the Notre Dame Argos in Sask AA Hockey League action, falling in Wilcox on Friday night before dropping an equally close decision at Mosaic Place on Saturday afternoon.
And while the local squad remains winless on the season and dropped to 0-5, the potential to find a win isn’t all that far away.
“We told the boys straight up, we had a gameplan to stick to and they did stick to it,” said Warriors head coach Mike Russell. “This is a hard one to swallow but they have nothing to be down on themselves about. We controlled the play, we controlled the game tonight. We outshot them, we outhit them and unfortunately the hockey gods weren’t with us, there were a couple of bad bounces and we came up short.”
Even only five games into the season, the team has seen plenty of improvement -- and that was the message Russell and his fellow coaches had for their crew after Saturday’s game.
“We were really impressed with what we saw, even from last night’s game to tonight’s game,” he said. “They’re buying into the program and we’re starting to see the fruits of our hard labour. And we just had a round of applause for the boys in there, for their hard work and to keep them pumped to come back Monday to work again.”
The Warriors are back in action next Saturday when the host the Weyburn Red Wings (7:15 p.m., Mosaic Place).
Argos 4, Warriors 3Jacob King and Erik Tittemore each had a goal and an assist for the Warriors on Friday night, with Connor Ruckaber scoring their other goal.
The two teams found themselves tied 1-1 after the first before the Argos scored a pair of quick goals to take a 3-1 lead early in the second. The Warriors were able to battle back, though, and found themselves trailing by one heading into the final frame. They’d be unable to find the equalizer, though, and dropped the one-goal decision.
Jayden Watterson went the distance in goal, making 40 saves.
Argos 4, Warriors 3Saturday’s rematch was just as close, as Osiowy and King scored goals in the first and second periods respectively, and the two teams went into the third tied 2-2.
Notre Dame would score goals just over 1:30 apart midway through the final frame and while Lyndon Fell scored with 49 seconds left, the Warriors would fall by one.
Watterson had 29 saves in the Warriors’ net.
