The Battlefords Sharks turned in a stellar effort on the road at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert Wednesday.
Unfortunately, they weren’t quite able to pull off the upset.
Jordan Ashe scored the winning goal for the Prince Albert Northern Bears at the 7:19 mark of overtime as the second ranked team in the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League escaped with a 2-01 triumph over the seventh seeded Sharks in Game 1 of a best-of-five quarter-final series.
“It was a really good game from the girls,” Sharks head coach Gary Berggren said. “The shots were a little lopsided but we stood toe-to-toe with Prince Albert all through the game.”
While the Sharks were outshot by a 39-9 margin, they received a sublime goaltending performance from Chantel Weller as she made 37 saves to help keep her team in the contest.
“They did have a lot of outside shots that made the shot total what it was, but Chantel was huge for us and didn’t give them a lot of second chances on the rebounds,” Berggren said.
“She’s playing well all year long and she’s become a lot better with her glove hand as of late. During the last three or four weeks, her side to side movement has been very good as well.”
Special teams play was also important for the Sharks Wednesday.
Ali Aitken scored on the power play in the second period while their penalty kill didn’t allow a goal on the five power play chances that the Bears had.
“That’s probably the best our penalty killing unit has played all season, so I was really happy to see that,” Berggren said.
“Our power play was working well and we had a lot of chances. We just couldn’t bury the puck on our five opportunities, except for the goal by Ali.”
Abby Soyko had the other goal for the Bears during the second period.
The two teams will do battle once again Saturday at the Battleford Arena at 3:45 p.m., where Berggren will be looking for a better offensive effort.
“We’ve focused so much on the defensive side of the game that we’re lacking a little bit when it comes to our scoring chances at the moment,” Berggren said. “We’re going to spend a lot of time working on that before Saturday.”
