Despite only dressing seven forwards and three defencemen, the Estevan PowerTech midget AA Panthers battled the Swift Current Titans to a hard-fought 1-0 loss in the first game of their Saskatchewan Hockey Association provincial semifinal series at the Civic Auditorium on Sunday.
“We lost on one fluky goal,” said Panthers coach Trevor Morrison. “It’s a two-game total-point series, so we’re down one goal going into Swift Current with three periods left to play. Overall our girls gave an excellent effort and we just didn’t get the bounce tonight, so hopefully we get it when we go there.”
Both teams came out slow early in the game, with Swift Current nabbing the first good opportunity nine minutes into the first period. The Titans’ Jenna O’Neill unleashed a shot from the top of the circle on the play that Panthers goalie Litesha Spittal made the initial save on, but the puck took a funny bounce off her pad and landed behind the goal line.
The 1-0 lead seemed all the momentum the Titans needed through the first two periods as they controlled the play in the offensive zone, swarming the puck carrier at all opportunities and clogging up the neutral zone to prevent any possible breakouts. When the Panthers did get sustained pressure in the Titans’ zone, Swift Current netminder Samantha Lemay was there lining up square to the puck and stopping any shots that came her way.
“We work hard on our forecheck all year,” said Titans coach Wayne Girodat. “We’ve got a system we use all year and it’s worked well for us for the most part. When the girls buy into it it’s a good system, but when the girls start to make mistakes it can break down in a hurry. In the third period it started to break down.”
The Panthers started playing desperate hockey in the final frame putting pucks on net and driving to it, which resulted in an increased offensive zone time where they outshot the Titans by a 9-3 margin. Panthers’ forward Makenna Morrison had the best chance in the period with two minutes left to play when she skated in on a breakaway, deked to her backhand, and found the pad of Lemay.
Coach Morrison said they’ll be working on a couple of different plays for breakouts and lanes to move the puck out of their defensive zone this week in practice before the second game of the series happens at Swift Current’s Credit Union iplex Arena on Saturday. He said they’ll focus on more defenceman to defenceman passing in order to open things up as they try and come back from the one goal deficit.
“This is probably our fifth year now off-and-on (facing each other) through bantam and midget hockey and they’re going to come hard,” said Girodat, about what they expect to see in Game 2. “It’s important for us to go out and score the first goal of the game, set the momentum, but it’ll be a lot of hard work. They’re going to come gunning and wanting to win in our barn.”
