The Yorkton Harvest split a pair of home games with the Swift Current Legionnaires over the weekend.
Yorkton outshot the Legionnaires 38-28 on the way to a 6-2 win Saturday afternoon at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
It was all Harvest for the first two periods. Denin Boesch opened the scoring for Yorkton late in the first period assisted by Levi Cable.
Kade Halabuza led off the second period Har-vest four goal scoring spree assisted by Cable and Ben Johnstone.
Cable added a single late in the frame assisted by Dustin Skiliter and Kale Thomson.
Gage Rapitta slipped the puck past the Swift Current netminder, Keenan Kostiuk assisted by Yanni Mamias.
Tanner LeSann scored the fourth goal of the second frame assisted by Rylan Baduke and Devin Fafard.
LeSann notched his second of the game in the third period assisted by Adam McCannell and John Odgers.
Swift Current scored twice in the final frame, the first off the stick of Travis Orr and the second by Zac Mackay to hand Yorkton the 6-2 win.
Sunday afternoon the Legionnaires struck early, establishing a two goal first period lead on goals by Tanner Froese and Matthew Boha which held for a narrow 3-2 win despite the Harvest's best efforts.
Matthew Audette extended the visitors' lead to three goals late in the second period before Johnstone's solo marker opened the scoring for the Yorkton Harvest.
Boesch pulled Yorkton within one goal with a powerplay goal assisted by Cable and Johnstone.
The Harvest tried to turn up their attack but couldn't get by the Swift Current forecheck.
Yorkton Harvest head coach Graham Garrett thinks his team played a lot better Sunday than Saturday despite the scores to the contrary.
He suggests the Legionnaires played a better game Sunday afternoon. "They wanted it (the win) more than we did," he declares.
"In the end we played 20 minutes of soft hockey and they got up 2-0 and were able to hold on," he reports.
Garrett adds that the team has struggled in the first period of almost every game so far this season. "Guys are not here prepared to play the way we need to play for 60 minutes," he states.
The Harvest is a 500 hockey team because of inconsistent play, suggests. "You can't play in this league not playing 60 minutes. You can't do your own thing for one shift. You can't do your own thing for 10 shifts. You gotta do the team thing every shift and we're not doing it right now," Garrett explains.
The Harvest haven't been able to establish a forecheck in the last six or seven games, he points out. "When we don't forecheck, we don't win hockey games," he says.
The Harvest got the bounces Saturday afternoon. It seemed like the puck went into the net with almost every shot on goal. but, Garret admits, the team didn't play particularly well. "We never, ever established our forecheck, never, ever got our feet moving but we just were scoring and kept playing badly because we were scoring," he elaborates.
