After starting out their season winless on the road and losing their top scorer in Davis Vandane to an ankle injury, it seemed like the Yorkton Bulldogs Prairie Gold Lacrosse League season was over before it started after an 8-4 loss to the Saskatoon Smash on Saturday night put the Bulldogs to 0-5 on the season, a dismal start for a team that struggled to put together a full team to start out the year.
All of those bad vibes to start 2013 were quickly erased on Sunday as the Bulldogs got revenge on a Prince Albert predators team that beat them down 16-3 on the road just one week prior to their tilt at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
With key players cracking the lineup after not being able to make the road trip in the road meeting, the Bulldogs brought a team that had more depth and more firepower into their rematch with the Predators.
Prince Albert got the first goal of the game early on, but Paul Toth buried a bounce back goal off a nice find from Jerrason Fisher to tie things up before Prince Albert went on a run, taking the lead into the second intermission, still the first period performance was something that could be built on as the Bulldogs were much more competitive in the opening twenty minutes than in their 16-3 loss in Prince Albert the week before.
The Predators continued to hold their ground to start the second, seemingly always finding an answer to the Bulldogs pressure. After staying close with the league best Smash on Saturday before seeing that hard fought effort slip away in the final half of the game, the Bulldogs would make sure that they wouldn't waste an opportunity to turn around their season in their final game of the weekend.
After Mackenzie Shore was jumped by a Predators player in front of the team's benches in what was a chippy second period, the Bulldogs began to make their comeback, focusing on discipline and a hard work rate from all of their players, they began to chip away at the Predators, who were getting increasingly frustrated with the home team's unwillingness to give up on Sunday afternoon.
Timely late second period goals erased the Predators early lead to just one goal heading into the final twenty minutes. After going into the game with the Smash down 6-4 heading into the third, the Bulldogs knew that they would need to finish much stronger if they were going to snap their losing skid.
"I told my guys that if we were going to turn things around this weekend we were going to need to play a full sixty minutes each game and especially in the third period," says the Bulldogs head coach. "Going into the third I knew that we would have to leave everything out there with a shorter lineup than every team in the league and my guys stepped up and we saw what happened out there," the coach concludes.
Veteran Jerrason Fisher kicked off the Bulldogs third period heroics, burying the game tying goal early on in the third period, giving his team tons of time to find the winner. Paul Toth, who scored the first goal of the game, was the hero scoring the final goal of the game to make it 7-6 before the Bulldogs all-star goalie Louden Choptuik and the defense held on for the first win of the year.
Fisher was ecstatic after the game, coming onto the team this weekend after needing to apply for a special exemption into the league being just days older than the league's age limit, Fisher was a huge difference maker on Sunday as the Bulldogs showed that with a full roster, they are a much different lacrosse team.
"We miss at least two, maybe even three or four of our key guys every time we play on the road with most of our guys working full-time careers which is always a challenge," says the Bulldogs coach who mentions that the Bulldogs finishing off the season at home is something that they are going to be hanging their hat on.
Fisher echoed those statements saying, "Now that we have our first win and have most of our final regular season games at home I think we have a team that will be one to be reckoned with despite starting the year off slow."
Now the Bulldogs will look to Sunday as they will be hoping to take advantage of only sending one player to the 2013 PGLL All-Star Game as they play at home for the second straight weekend. Goaltender Louden Choptuik will be the only Bulldog at the event as Davis Vandane's injury will keep him from participating in the game and for the rest of the season as the former Prince Albert Raiders defenseman's return to the game of lacrosse has ended just as he was getting back into form with 11 goals to open the season.
Jayden Dozorec, and Brennan Peleshytyk were also named to the PGLL All-Star team, but were unable to attend the game in Estevan.
Now the focus for the Bulldogs will shift to continuing to climb the standings, a win away from fifth place and two away from fourth the season can still be salvaged. A huge win at home may just be what turns around the Bulldogs 2013 season.
