Moose Jaw Mavericks Beat Weyburn Wings 5-2

Robert Thomas

After a bit of a tentative start, the league leading Moose Jaw Bantam Mavericks defeated the Weyburn Creekside Carwash Wings 5-2 in South Saskatchewan Female Hockey League action Friday night.

The Wings were able to use their size to turn the puck over a number of times on the Mavericks blue line early in the 1st period but were unable to capitalize with any good scoring opportunities.

From the 15:00 mark of the 1st period, the Mavericks were able to begin to slowly control the game. Wings netminder, Riley Schultz , made some key saves to hold Weyburn in the game. At the 13:20 mark Schultz was able to stonewall the Mavericks to keep the game scoreless.

Special teams were key in the first period, as the Mavericks were able to capitalize on the power play twice and kill off a lone penalty against them.

At the 10:39 mark the Mavericks scored with a pass from the right wing circle by Katilyn Gilroy to Keara Merriman who wrist handed it top shelf to open the scoring; and again at the 9:56 mark of the 1st period, Makayla Anderson came off of the right point and wrist handed it through traffic to score, assisted by Ember DuSomme.

It looked like the Mavericks were going to go up three to nothing, but once again Schultz came up big and robbed Moose Jaw at point blank range. Late in the period, while on the penalty kill, Christman once again made a great save to keep Weyburn off the board.

The second period saw quick goals by Moose Jaw, as the Mavericks came out on fire dominating the game with the majority of play on the Wings side of centre ice. Kaitlyn Gilroy slid the puck out from behind the net to DuSomme, who put it in at the 18:47 mark of the 2nd period.

The Mavericks continued to dominate around the net with Taylor Luciak and Kearra Merriman assisting Tia Miller who slid it past Schultz to score at the 17:51 mark of the second.

Despite being down by four goals, the Wings pressed and managed to take advantage of a couple of forced Maverick mistakes, picking the puck up close to the net as Presleigh Runge scored at the 2:10 mark assisted by Sommer Foley and Emersyn Jordens.

The Mavericks took back the momentum as Nikita Halyk scored at 00:56, skating in from the right point after being set up by Courtney Botterill.

In the third period, Moose Jaw pressed for more goals but were denied by Weyburn’s Schultz, who made some great saves to keep the Wings from further deficit. Schultz’s saves did not go unnoticed, as good work by Weyburn’s Runge along the right side boards allowed her to set up Foley at 11:43 of the third period to make the score 5-2 in the Mavericks favour.

The Wings seemed to come to life for the next two minutes, as Macy Cugnet pressed hard but was robbed by the Maverick’s net-minder Christmann, ending the Wings sudden burst of effort.

Weyburn lost the momentum and play reverted for the remainder of the game to mainly in the Wings end, but they were unable to score again on Schultz.

Mavericks’ assistant coach Mike Botterill said the team played well.

“They always play hard they're a good group of girls who give it 100% all of the time,” Botterill said, adding “it's typical for our game...we outshoot the opposition for the most part.”

Asked about Weyburn's Schultz in goal, Botterill said “she's a very good goalie. We could have blown the game out of control she made some very key saves for them."

Shot totals were 50 for the Mavericks versus 17 for the Wings.

The Mavericks remain on top of the league with 41 points, the second place Parkland Crushers have 35 points.