The Yorkton Harvest avenged a couple of tough losses on the road before swinging back for what was their widest-margin victory of the season Sunday evening in Saskatoon.Following losses of 6-1 and 6-3 against Prince Albert and the Saskatoon Contacts, the Harvest got back to their high-scoring ways, waxing the Saskatoon Blazers by an 8-0 count.Levi Cable, who is now among the top five scorers in the league, showed why that is as he added two more to his total, and so did captain Dustin Skilliter.Cable is tied for fourth overall in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA league with 43 (with Jaimen Yakubowski of the Beardy's Blackhawks), while Skilliter sits in a four-way tie with 38 points.Both were in on the game's opening goal, which also turned out to be the game winning goal, 4:57 into the game, as Cable and Denin Boesch set up Skilliter. Cable tallied shortly after to make it 2-0, and Skilliter added his second at the 10:09 mark.
Continued on Page A16Skilliter, Cable and Boesch each had two points in the opening period. Rylan Badduke and Devan Fafard also drew assists on Cable's goal.
Yorkton continued to apply the pressure throughout the remainder of the match, piling on five more goals, three coming on the man advantage.
Kade Halabuza from Gage Rapitta and Tanner LeSann made it 4-0. LeSann from Rapitta and finally, Devan Fafard tallied from Halabuza and Ben Johnstone to round out the second period; all three goals were scored on the power play.
Rapitta and Cable scored in the third period.
Yorkton connected on five of six power play opportunities for a percentage efficiency of 83.3.
Goaltender Kale Thomson took the win in the Yorkton nets, recording his third shutout of the season, stopping all 31 shots he faced, which included 15 in the game's first 20 minutes.
On Friday night, the Harvest headed into enemy territory that has never ever been very friendly for them. The rolled into Prince Albert and got rolled, 6-1.
Prince Albert shooters fired 40 shots on net and six went in, propelling the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League's top club, the Mintos, who had taken a 4-1 lead after the opening period. Yorkton's LeSann did the only damage scoring-wise, with a marker with nine seconds left in the period.
Prince Albert dominated the second period in the shots department with a 14-4 advantage.Yorkton got off to a good start in that area with a 15-11 advantage but could only register the one goal.
The following day (Jan. 15), Yorkton took on the third-place Saskatoon Contacts. Despite a 20-shot middle frame, fell by a 6-3 final.
They went 1-7 on the power play, while the homeside Contacts went 2-5.
Despite the score, the Harvest were never out of this one; having trailed 1-0 after one period and 2-1 after two periods, everything seemed to be going okay until less than two minutes into the third period when Saskatoon's Colton Olynuk tallied a shorthanded marker unassisted.
Three more Contacts goals scored, helped them to a 6-3 win. Yorkton did manage goals by Fafard and Cable, but the Contacts dominated on special teams and held a 42-33 shots advantage.
The team returns to home on Jan. 20 (Thursday) to tangle with the Tisdale Trojans.
