After some early struggles with consistency this season, the Estevan Power Tech Bear Cats have been putting some wins together this season.
The Bear Cats have won four in a row in South Saskatchewan Female Midget AA Hockey League action, including the last pair at home over the Parkland Lions. They won 4-1 Sunday and 3-2 Saturday at Affinity Place.
“When we play quick, and we get on the puck, we create turnovers and create scoring opportunities,” said Bear Cats head coach Trevor Morrison. “We're starting to work better as a team.”
The team's familiarity with each other is starting to help also, as four different goal-scorers notched goals Sunday.
“We're trying to keep some lines together so they're used to playing with each other,” Morrison said. “We still have peaks and valleys in our game where we don't play pressure hockey and kind of let the game get from us a little bit. We need to get to where we play more aggressive quicker (and) makign sure all the girls have confidence and don't hesitate. It's getting better... I feel the girls are coming.”
Saturday, Marci LeBlanc scored a pair of goals, with Morgan Haygarth getting the other Bear Cat goal. Sunday's goals were scored by Jazynn Monteyne, Kayla Wanner, Karleigh McKenzie and LeBlanc. It's clear the Bear Cats are becoming a deeper team than they were a month ago.
“We're winning some games now but our end goal is to win the championship,” Morrison said. “It's a lot better when you have balanced scoring. We have one very good player, which helps.”
LeBlanc has scored 15 goals in nine games but she's noticed the difference in recent games.
“To me, we've started to work as a team and become more like one than all separately,” she said. “We've worked on passing, getting it too each other and knowing where we're supposed to be. It's a lot of working together.”
Morgan Fayle stopped 32 shots for the Bear Cats Saturday and Devan Fayle saved 15 in net Sunday.
The Bear Cats' next game is Sunday at 2:45 p.m. at Affinity Place against the league-leading Regina Ravens.
