With a couple of weaker opponents coming to town, the Estevan Tarpon Energy Big Dogs were hoping to pick up a couple of wins on the weekend.
What they got, however, was a loss and a tie.
The Big Dogs (1-9-1) lost 12-10 to the Yorkton Bulldogs on Saturday and tied the Regina Riot 14-14 on Sunday. Both games were at Affinity Place.
Yorkton (2-4-1) also defeated the Big Dogs at the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League festival last month. Both of their wins this season have come against Estevan.
On Sunday, Marshall Holzer scored with 68 seconds remaining to pull the Big Dogs into a tie, capping a third period comeback from a three-goal deficit.
"I thought we did a good job battling back. We were down going into the third period," said Big Dogs head coach Evan Handley.
"It was really nice just to see all our kids battle back and keep playing hard. (On Saturday) we didn't do that, so today it was really nice to see us play hard."
Big Dogs star Rhett Handley had a dominant afternoon, scoring seven goals to go with two assists. Four of those goals came in the third period. Holzer, Michael Bittman and Cole MacCuish each scored twice.
Ben Wiebe led the Riot (1-5-2) with four goals. Jared Steier (3), Liam Diebel (3), Brandon Griffiths (2), Brendan Wilhelm and Tyrel Norbeck also scored.
Handley said it was a strong outing at both ends of the floor for his team.
"Offensively, we moved the ball more. We moved more, and that's how we generated offence. We played better defensively. I know (the Riot) aren't as big and tough as some of the other teams, but they still move the ball well."
Another difference between the two games for Estevan was the size of their bench, as they had 18 players, including three affiliated players.
"We had more people come out today, so that was nice to see. It's really tough when you don't have a full bench every day because your top guys and your defensive players get beat up, and they get sore. It's hard to compete when other teams have bigger rosters. We need all the bodies we can get."
Saturday's loss was one to forget for the Big Dogs. The teams were tied 2-2 after the first period, but a scoreless second saw Estevan fall into an 8-2 hole.
"We just didn't show up. We were really bad in the first two periods. We scored eight goals in the third, but by then we were down too much to come back and win. We just did not play well," said Handley.
"I was pretty mad at the kids between the first and second periods and again between the second and third period, and I'm sure they learned some new words. But you know what, we showed a lot of resilience battling back in the third period."
Ty Currie and Handley each scored hat tricks for the Big Dogs, while Bittman (2), Holzer and Kolby Fleury also found the back of the net.
Mackenzie Shore was the Bulldogs' top scorer with five goals. Jayden Dozorec (3), Brett Melnychuk (2), Layne Hull and Tanner Kardynal also scored.
With 32 seconds left in the game, Handley scored to pull the Big Dogs within two, but the game was interrupted when the officials were verbally abused.
"I called a timeout, which is what we needed. I thought we could have a chance to at least score one more and make it really interesting. One of their players was yelling and screaming at the referee and the referee called the game on us," said Handley.
"You never like to see that. We have people here in Estevan that are reffing for us and they've never reffed games before. Otherwise, it's about $400 a game just to get refs down here. We need people in Estevan involved, and it's very disappointing when stuff like that happens. Hopefully the two refs know that it wasn't us that was causing all the problems."
The Big Dogs have one regular season game left, and it won't be until June 27, when they visit the Riot in Regina.
"We're a work in progress. We've got a lot of work to do," said Handley. "We've showed we can play with a lot of different teams. I know our results on the scoreboard don't show that, but we have been in a lot of games."
