The Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers picked up two more wins this past weekend, first beating the Notre Dame Argos Saturday night before downing the visiting Swift Current K-Motel Hurricanes 5-3 on Sunday afternoon.
The two wins improve the Midget 鈥楢A鈥 Kinsmen Terrier record to 4-2-2, good enough for 10 points and third place overall in the 14-team 小蓝视频 Saskatchewan Minor Hockey League (SSMHL) Midget 鈥楢A鈥 Division. Estevan leads the league with 15 points, followed closely by the Notre Dame Bantam Hounds at 12.
Yorkton sits third with 10 points, Moose Jaw is fourth with eight while Weyburn and Melville both have seven points and sit in fifth and sixth respectively.
The Midget Hounds are seventh with six points while the Notre Dame Argos and Regina Rangers are tied for eighth and ninth with four points. The Regina Vics and Prairie Storm have three points, Swift Current has two and both the Lumsden/Bethune Lions and Regina Capitals share the league basement with zero points.
For the Kinsmen Terriers, the strong start to the season has been something that head coach Grant Ottenbreit says he was looking forward to, although he wasn鈥檛 sure it was going to happen after a pair of losses to open the season. 鈥淲e started out with two losses and I was worried that that was going to dictate how our season went,鈥 offered Ottenbreit, adding that instead the two losses seemed to fuel his club. 鈥淣ow we鈥檝e got points in five straight games so we鈥檙e really happy with the direction that we鈥檙e going in.
鈥淭o get two wins this weekend is really good. We were missing our veteran goalie and three of our top forwards so we were missing lots of bodies yesterday.鈥
Ottenbreit also feels that, while it鈥檚 never good to be missing players, it鈥檚 still nice to see that other players can step in and take advantage of their opportunity.
One such player that did that, according to Ottenbreit, was first year midget goaltender and Kinsmen Terrier backup goalie Dakota Berezowski who got both starts on the weekend due to Carter Park鈥檚 commitment to football and subsequent injury. 鈥淏erezowski got both games because Carter Park missed yesterday鈥檚 game because of football and sat out today鈥檚 game because of an injury and he really proved we made the right decision taking him as one of our goalies,鈥 said Ottenbreit, adding that he knew Berezowski is capable of playing at a high level. 鈥淏erezowski played bantam 鈥楢A鈥 last year and he had a long run last year with going to Western鈥檚 and played well so we know we can rely on him back there, but this weekend just proved that we could.鈥
The next action for the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers will be this Friday and Saturday when they visit Wilcox to take on the Notre Dame Hounds at 8:30p.m. on Friday and Notre Dame Bantam Hounds at 2:00p.m. on Saturday.