At a time of year when each and every victory begins to seem even more important then they did back in September and October, the Yorkton Harvest played their only scheduled date last Thursday, having no scheduled games this past weekend.
Having only two games in a stretch of 14 days isn't ideal, especially at this time of year, but with high school exams going on, Graham Garrett, head coach of the Harvest, says it's not a bad thing right now.
"It allows us to kind of have a good feeling with exams this week."
Currently sitting in eighth position in the league standings, they are no doubt trying to raise their positioning as much as they can before playoffs.
They did that Thursday night when the Tisdale Trojans rolled into the Gallagher Centre in what was only their fourth Thursday-night home date this season.
That night they did two things right that they don't always do, at least not on the same night.
First, they won the game 4-2 on the strength of a two-point night from both Levi Cable and Tanner LeSann; second, they also managed to outshoot their opposition.
On top of that, they took two points from the team they were hoping to catch up to in the standings.
Now, with the latest Harvest 'w', Tisdale is now trying to catch Yorkton.
"We played a strong game," suggests Garrett. "We had a little lapse in the second (period) but we took away their speed in the neutral zone in the third."
Going into the weekend action, the Trojans were scheduled for a Saturday night date with the Argos at Notre Dame, who are currently in fifth place in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League standings.
The Harvest might start hoping that lady luck is on their side, their next action following their Tisdale win last week is tomorrow night when they play host to the Regina Pat Canadians, who occupy the third slot in the league standings.
In the win against Tisdale, Yorkton connected only once on the power play but once proved to be enough for the win. It came at 2:41 of the opening period when Kailum Gervais tallied to tie the game at 1-1.
The teams exchanged markers in the middle frame, Dustin Skilliter notched his 15th of the year from LeSann and Cable, while Ty McLean evened the score at 2-2 from Tanner Eberle and Jeff Hubic.
Two unanswered efforts in the final frame, by LeSann and Kody Thue, sealed the two points. Josh Lees, Ryley Stefanyshyn and Rylan Badduke drew the assists on the third-period goals.
Harvest goaltender Kale Thomson got the win, stopping 22 of 24 shots.
Yorkton's next opponents in league action will be the Regina Pat Canadians.
Regina currently holds a 10-point lead on the Harvest in the standings. Game time is 8 p.m., tomorrow night (Thursday) at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
Yorkton then heads out to Moose Jaw for a Saturday afternoon game with the Generals on Jan. 29.
