Bantam Mustangs rebound from close loss with bronze medal win
The first three games of the South Saskatchewan Lacrosse League Bantam championship tournament were all decided by two goals or less and for the Moose Jaw Mustangs, that meant a bit of the bad and a bit of the good – a 5-4 loss to the undefeated Estevan Voltz in their semifinals game before an impressive rebound in the bronze medal game and a 9-7 win over the Swift Current Rampage. “It’s a close league, there are four teams here where it was one-goal games all over the place, which has been great for our season,” said Mustangs coach Steve Michaluk. “Every game you have to come to play and if you’re a little bit flat in the first period like we were (in the semifinals), it’ll cost you.
“But at the end of the day we had a pretty good game here this afternoon. The guys dug pretty deep only an hour and a half after the last one and it’s a hot rink, so it was pretty good.”
The Mustangs trailed 4-1 after the first period in the opening game before coming back to tie the contest, only to see Estevan score late to take the win and advance to the gold medal game.
Scoring information for that contest was unavailable as of press time.
Things were almost the exact opposite in the bronze medal game, as the Mustangs came out firing and took a 5-3 lead out of the first period. They led 6-4 through two before a pair of goals just over a minute apart in the third gave them an 8-4 lead with 9:37 to play. Swift Current would get back within two late in the game, but an insurance marker with 2:38 to go sealed the Moose Jaw win. Liam Fitzpatrick scored twice and added two assists while Rhett Chute had two goals to go along with single markers from Rowan Calvert, Lucas Salkin, Jake Williams, Jacob Gyman and Carter Michaluk.
The season is far from over for the Mustangs, as they’ll be in action at the Canada Day tournament in Calgary this coming weekend followed by provincials in Estevan July 6-7.