Four-goal third period pushes Warriors past Royals Friday
Victoria, B.C. – The skid is over for the Moose Jaw Warriors after they put together a big comeback win over the Victoria Royals on Friday night.
The Warriors scored four goals in the third period to pick up a 4-2 win over the Royals at Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena to snap an eight-game winless skid.
“It’s great,” Warriors associate coach Scott King said on the team’s first win since Oct. 11. “Great on us to battle back and I’m sure the guys feel pretty good.”
Connor Schmidt scored the goal that got the Warriors rolling in the third period, potting his third of the season just 2:24 into the frame.
The Warriors would go on to score three goals in the first 5:15 of the third period to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead real quick.
“We played a really good third period, a really good third period with the lead and it’s nice, Schmidty gets us going and that was a big point in the game, he just shoots the puck on net, it goes in and all of a sudden, they tighten up,” King said.
Victoria struck for two goals in the first from Teydon Trembecky and Reggie Newman and held that lead until the third period.
After Schmidt got the Warriors on the board, Lynden Lakovic set up Kalem Parker for his second of the season only 24 seconds later to tie the game at 2-2.
Just over two minutes later, Owen Berge snapped home his sixth of the season for the eventual game-winning goal.
The Warriors clamped down after that and in the final minute, Rilen Kovacevic won a race for the puck to set up Ethan Semeniuk who scored his first of the season with 26 seconds to go to seal the win.
“When things aren’t going well, you just shoot the puck and usually if you do that enough times, you’ll get a lucky bounce or something will happen and it might change the complex of the game,” King said.
“After Schmidty got us going with that shot, you could just see it brought a lot of life onto the bench and we felt like maybe this was the night to turn it around.”
After giving up two goals in the first period, Jackson Unger settled in to stop all 20 shots he faced over the final two periods and make 30 saves overall in the game.
Moose Jaw was outshot, 32-25, on the night. The Warriors were 0-for-3 on the power play and 3-for-4 on the penalty kill.
The Warriors will now finish up their five-game BC Division road trip on Saturday night against the Vancouver Giants at the Langley Events Centre.