Cubs settle for weekend split

The Medicine Hat Travelodge Cubs were forced to settle for a weekend split after following up Friday’s 6-1 win over the High River Flyers with a narrow 2-1 setback to the Vipers on Saturday night in Red Deer.

Cooper Hilworth started up a late comeback attempt for Medicine Hat by cutting into a 2-0 lead halfway through the third period, but the Cubs were unable to get another past Vipers goaltender Justin Travis and slipped to 6-8-2 on the Heritage Junior Hockey League season as a result.

Travis turned away 17 shots to collect the win and push Red Deer to 9-5-1. Medicine Hat’s Brett Vanderveer stopped 24 in the loss.

The setback follows up a landslide win in hostile territory Friday. Noah Irvine led the way for Medicine Hat with two goals while Joshua Schafer had three assists and Mackenzie Fritzler added two.

High River’s Mitchell Bosch opened the scoring, but Irvine answered back to even the score after 20 minutes and the Cubs took over in the second. Irvine, Quinten Karg, Braydon MacDonell and Chandler Aleman all scored to stretch the lead to four in the middle frame, then Tristan Stensrud added another for good measure in the third.

Cubs goaltender Martyn Clift stopped 37 shots to collect the win, while High River’s Chance Vinck settled for a 15save loss. Flyers backup Max Johnston took over in the second and stopped 8-of-9 shots.

The Cubs return to the ice Saturday in Didsbury against the Mountainview Colts.