Dinos strike first against Horns

The University of Lethbridge Pronghorns men’s hockey team did a little chasing, but couldn’t quite catch up.

The Horns were downed 5-1 by the Calgary Dinos in Game 1 of the teams’ best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series Friday night in Calgary.

The Pronghorns trailed 3-1 after two periods, but a late Dinos emptynet goal with 2:05 remaining and a power-play goal shortly afterward powered the hosts to the win.

Some early turnovers proved costly in the early going of Friday night’s game, said Pronghorns head coach Murray Nystrom.

“I thought by the midpoint of the game we started to find our legs and start to get pucks behind their defencemen and pushing a little bit. We got some traffic in front of the net, which we lacked in the early part of the game.”

The Dinos held a 3-0 lead by the 5:02 mark of the second period on goals from Bradley Schoonbaert, former Hurricane Matt Alfaro and Logan Fisher before Spenser Jensen got the Horns on the board with four seconds left in the second.

After a mostly scoreless third period, the Dinos iced the seriesopener with an empty-netter from Chris Rauckman and a manadvantage goal in the last minute by another former Hurricane, Riley Sheen.

“We scored the goal at the end of the second and when we went into the third, the game was still within reach,” said Nystrom. “But I think as the game went down we just missed some opportunities and when you’re chasing from behind and trying to close that gap you extend yourself. We got to the point where we have to pull the goaltender and they got an empty netter and then they got a late power-play goal. But we did some good things.”

Pronghorns goaltender Garret Hughson stopped 30 of 34 shots in the loss. Game 2 goes tonight at 6 p.m. If necessary, Game 3 is Sunday, also at 6 p.m.

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