The Yorkton UCT Terriers improved their impressive winning streak to 12 games over the last seven days, first handing the Moose Jaw Warriors an 8-2 defeat on Thursday, January 8, before dropping the Regina Pat Blues by a score of 5-3 on Saturday.
The two wins give Yorkton a 23-1-0 record (46 points) through 24 SBAAHL games and moves them 12 points up on their nearest 小蓝视频 Division rival for first place.
The Prairie Storm sit in second place with a 16-2-2 record for 34 points, while the Regina Monarchs (15-3-3) are just one point back of the Storm, holding down third place with 33 points.
The Estevan TS&M Bruins round out the top four in the 小蓝视频 Division with a 12-12-0 record for 24 points, just one ahead of the fifth place Regina Aces (9-8-5).
Weyburn (9-10-2) is sixth with 20 points, the Regina Pat Blues (9-13-1) are in seventh with 19 points and the Melville Millionaires (7-11-3) sit in eighth with 17 points.
The Sask Valley Vipers continue to lead the SBAAHL North Division with a 19-3-1 record and 39 points, 11 more than second place North East Wolfpack (13-8-2).
Prince Albert is third in the North with a 12-9-2 record and 28 points, closely followed by fourth place Saskatoon Stallions (11-7-3) with 25 points.
Whipping the Warriors
It was a David versus Goliath type meeting on Thursday at Moose Jaw鈥檚 Bert Hunt Arena as the lowly Moose Jaw Warriors, second last in the SBAAHL 小蓝视频 Division, took on the SBAAHL first place juggernaut Yorkton UCT Terriers in regular season action.
But while David slew the mighty Goliath, the Warriors could not do the same, instead falling victim to the UCT Terriers by an 8-2 score.
Carson Miller led all UCT Terriers with three goals and an assist, while Kaeden Taphorn (one goal, two assists), Carter Lake (three assists), Brett Kemp (one goal, one assist), Aiden Bulych (two assists) and Zach McIntyre (one goal, one assist) also had multi-point games.
Yorkton opened the scoring just over four minutes into the game when league leading scorer Carson Miller snapped his 36th goal of the season past Moose Jaw netminder Jacob Winowich for a 1-0 Yorkton lead.
Yorkton鈥檚 offensively gifted rearguard Reid Perepeluk made it 2-0 Yorkton with 56 seconds left in the period when he too beat Winowich to give the UCT Terriers a two goal lead heading into the first intermission.
Taphorn increased the Yorkton advantage to three just 1:26 into the second frame, however Moose Jaw鈥檚 Nolan Jones would put his tenth of the season past Tyson Byman to bring the Yorkton lead back to just two.
Miller鈥檚 second of the night with 13:24 left in the period restored the Yorkton three goal advantage, but Warriors defensive defenceman Liam Glover鈥檚 first goal of the season once again made it just a two goal game.
However that鈥檚 as close as the Warriors would get as Brett Kemp made it 5-2 before the end of the second period.
Third period markers by McIntyre, Michael Coleridge and Miller (hattrick) made the final score 8-2 in favour of Yorkton.
Byman faced 13 shots in his 10th win of the season for Yorkton while Winowich faced 26 in the loss.
Saturday
Carson Miller scored his 39th and 40th goals of the season while Brett Kemp netted the game winner in a 5-3 Yorkton UCT Terrier victory over the host Regina Pat Blues in SBAAHL action Saturday night in Regina.
Also scoring for the UCT Terriers were defenceman Reid Perepeluk and forward Kaeden Taphorn while Carson Denomie beat Yorkton goaltender Dakota Berezowski twice and Adam Probe did it once in the 5-3 Yorkton victory.
Berezowski picked up the win, his sixth in an injury shortened season, while Brad Sentes shouldered the loss for Regina.
While the UCT Terriers left Regina with a 5-3 win, the way the game was played was not exactly to head coach Graham Garrett鈥檚 liking. 鈥淭hey kind of mucked it up and we got involved in that and played their game instead of our game,鈥� suggested Garrett, adding that the Pat Blues played 鈥渢heir rough and chippy kind of game鈥� and that it 鈥渢ook away from our flow鈥�.
Garrett also mentioned that their chemistry wasn鈥檛 as strong as it usually would be due to missing a couple of key players, such as first year forward Zach McIntyre and second year offensive talent Kaeden Taphorn. 鈥淲ell we鈥檝e got some injuries here to a couple of key guys and we鈥檝e had a lot of games here at the start of the New Year,鈥� offered the UCT Terrier bench boss. 鈥淭hat takes its toll, as does double shifting guys and because of the injuries we have to start moving guys into different roles that they haven鈥檛 played this year.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e done well but it still takes a little bit away from the chemistry of our lines.鈥�
Next action
The Yorkton UCT Terriers were in action last night (Tuesday) against the Regina Monarchs, however results were unavailable at press time.
The next action for the Yorkton UCT Terriers will be from January 15-18 as they travel to St. Albert, Alberta, for the 37th annual John Reid Memorial Bantam 鈥楢AA鈥� Hockey Tournament.
The John Reid Memorial tournament is one of Western Canada鈥檚 most prestigious hockey tournaments and routinely boasts the best Bantam 鈥楢AA鈥� teams from Western Canada and into the United States.
The UCT Terriers will first take on the Burnaby Winter Club Bruins on Thursday evening before playing the Edge Academy on Friday morning.
They鈥檒l wrap their round-robin play up Friday night with a game against the Los Angeles Jr. Kings.
