The Estevan Tarpon Energy Big Dogs did their part. On Tuesday, it was up to the Regina Rifles to do theirs.
The Big Dogs (3-7) closed out the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League season with an 18-9 victory over the Yorkton Bulldogs on Sunday at the Icon Centre.
With the win, the Big Dogs had a chance to finish in third place in the PGLL's South Division.
A third-place finish would pit the Big Dogs against the Moose Jaw Mustangs (6-4) in the first round, in a game to be played tonight in Moose Jaw, while fourth place would match them against the Rifles (7-2) next Monday in Regina.
A Rifles victory over the Regina Riot last night would give the Big Dogs third. A win by the Riot would drop Estevan to fourth.
"We need to play a full 60 minutes whoever we play," said Big Dogs head coach Evan Handley. "If it ends up being the Regina Rifles, we played them really hard at home here for 25 minutes. It was a really tight game, and then we fell asleep for five minutes and they really blew it open. If we play a hard 60 minutes, whoever we play, I think we have a chance to be in the game.
"We've proven in the last few games that we can put the ball in the net a lot. We don't want to get in a run-and-gun game, but if we have to, we can put up 10 or 12 goals."
Handley added that staying out of the penalty box will also be a key in the playoffs.
As for the game against Yorkton (3-7), Rhett Handley had an explosive game even by his standards, with six goals and eight assists, while Dylan Smith pumped in eight goals with one helper.
Michael Bittman (3) and Brody Kosior also scored.
For the Bulldogs, Jerrison Fisher netted two goals and four assists, while Jackson Tetreault (2), Layne Hull, Brennen Peleshytyk, Jayden Dozorec, Tyson Hass and Jake Prybylski also found the back of the net.
"You always want to try and win your last game at home and your last regular season game to give yourself some momentum going into the playoffs," said Handley.
"We played good defensively. When they did get the ball, we made sure we got back on the defence pretty quick. We tried to keep on our man, which is something we hadn't been doing well throughout the year, but we did a much better job of doing that (on Sunday)."
The Big Dogs fired seven goals in the first period to take a 7-4 lead after one - every goal coming from either Handley or Smith.
Estevan scored twice seven seconds apart in the last minute of the period to give the team a three-goal cushion heading into the second.
The middle frame was where the Big Dogs took control of the game for good, as they potted seven more tallies, while Yorkton scored only once.
Smith scored a hat trick in the period, with Bittman and Handley adding two goals apiece.
The teams were even in the third period, scoring four goals apiece, but the damage had already been done.
"They've always had a pretty good team," Handley said of the Bulldogs. "They have a really good goaltender. I think he had a little bit of an off day, but our kids did a really good job of picking the corners on him. We found a weakness where he was a little bit off on his angles and we exploited those."
He attributed being able to hone in on the goaltender's weakness to having players specifically used in offensive roles.
"It pays having our guys just out there on offence because they know that. They see that."
The Big Dogs switched to an offence/defence system midway through the season, which sees all five players on the floor responsible for either one or the other, depending on the situation.
Handley credited that for the team's second-half surge, which saw them win three of their last five games after losing their first five.
"That was something good, something we can build on next year and going forward, because most of the other teams in the league have been doing that.
"It's different for some kids. They're used to playing both ends of the floor, so it was tough to get into only playing defence and getting off the floor or only playing offence.
"It's something that had to be done. It's something that I didn't think we could do with the number of players we had here. Even the games where we've only had 12 or 13 players, we ran the system, and it worked well."
