AAA Wildcats continue winning ways at home
The Swift Current Diamond Energy Wildcats took care of business during another weekend at home in the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League.
The Wildcats hosted the last-place Battleford Sharks and won both games by 4-0 scores to improve to 6-1-1-0 at home this season.
Saturday, the Wildcats took awhile to find their scoring touch but eventually got on track with three second-period goals over 5:02 to put the game away.
Rookie Kate Scidmore scored goals 1:17 apart to open the scoring early in the second period. Karlie Bell added a goal on a rebound to make it 3-0. Kayla Kirwan and Brooklyn Haubrich added assists on Bell’s goal. Haubrich picked up assists on both of Scidmore’s goals for a three-point period.
Kirwan scored the only goal of the third period with an assist from Mikayla Swallow to close out the scoring.
The Wildcats peppered Rachel Mitchell with 35 shots throughout the contest. Brooklyn Weisgerber made 17 saves in her second shutout of the season to improve to 4-4-0 this season with a 1.91 goals against average and a .929 save percentage. Sunday’s contest played out in similar fashion with the Wildcats outshooting the Sharks 34-11.
They earned some breathing room slightly earlier when Scidmore scored with 23 seconds left in the first period. The rookie from Moose Jaw now leads the Wildcats with seven goals this season.
Bell and Tori Kendall scored power play goals in the second period as the Wildcats finished two-forthree on the man-advantage.
Keely Chalk also scored at even-strength in the third period.
Bell and Scidmore both added two assists for three-point games, while Kendall also picked up an assist for a two-point outing.
Haubrich, Kirwan, and Brenna Thomson added assists.
Rookie Jasey Book, fresh off being named the SFMAAAHL’s Second Star in November, picked up her second shutout of the season with 11 saves. The Loreburn product is now 6-3 with a 1.60 GAA and a .932 save percentage.
The Wildcats moved into third place in the eight-team league with a 7-7-3-0 record, while Battleford dropped to 1-14-00.
Head coach Terry Pavely was all smiles after scoring eight goals and taking all six points over the weekend.
“We really focused on trying to establish the cycle and I thought we did that both games. When we got the puck deep and cycled then that opened up the point and we got some shots and we were able to get some traffic to the net,” he explained.
“Well Terry had some high expectations for us and obviously we followed through,” added Kirwan.
“We were getting lots of shots on net and burying on our opportunities.”
Pavely was happy to see his team close both games out.
“Probably the biggest thing for us was that when it was 2-0 we kind of stepped on the gas pedal for once. We didn’t let up, we still played in their end.
“That was one of the big things we were focused on, was once we got up 2-0 is how are we going to respond, how are we going to play with the lead?”