Warriors keep streak alive; Chiefs edged in home opener

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Wheatland Warriors improved to 5-1 on the season with a pair of wins over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The local double-A bantam team was able to beat the Taber Golden Suns 4-3 last Friday on the road and ousted the Medicine Hat Hounds at home 6-2 on Sunday afternoon, extending their winning streak to three games.
Head coach Cody Brown liked what he saw from his club, coming back from a 2-0 deficit early against Taber, and felt as though the players are starting to connect.
“They’re practicing more now, they’re starting to gel a bit,” said Brown. “That’s making a big difference for sure, getting to know each other a little more. There’s still a lot of things to work on, but that’ll come with time.”
Anson McMaster, Stran Backfat Redcrow, Max Schafer and Kyle Bray scored in Taber.
However, in the second game, Brown thought there were areas that needed to be improved upon, despite having a solid goal output.
“I think today coming off a pretty sizeable win the first time we played them this year, maybe went in thinking things were going to come a little easy,” said Brown. “Probably a little complacent in some areas, but just have to work through it.”
He added it was tough to focus at times during the game and that may have contributed to them staying back from the play a bit. As a result, a lot of the basic plays went on the back burner.
Brandon Kasdorf led the game with a hat trick, while Schafer, Bray and Ben Slemp scored one each in the victory.
The Warriors will host Taber at 2 p.m. in Hussar on Oct. 18.
Chiefs struggle
The Wheatland Chiefs did not have luck on their side as they were edged 2-1 in their home opener on Oct. 10 by the CNHA Blazers and then tied the Okotoks Oilers Black 2-2 the following afternoon.
Assistant coach Keenan Desmet thought the local double-A midget players did what the coaches asked of them but they needed to bear down on their chances more.
“Saturday, I thought we played a hard game,” said Desmet. “We tried all 60 minutes. We had lots of jump and lots of speed, but we kind of got snake bitten this weekend. Other than that, in the full two games, the coaches were pretty impressed of everybody showing up.”
He added that going from shellacking Cranbrook a week prior to playing a top team in the league proved to be difficult for timing on plays and said it’s early in the year.
Kody Hammond scored against the Blazers while Hammond and Lucas Muenchrath scored in the tie against Okotoks.
The Chiefs will be back on home ice against the Red Deer Elks at 2 p.m. on Oct. 17 and against the Lethbridge Hurricanes at 4:15 p.m. on Oct. 18.
Braves back on ice
After a bye for the Thanksgiving weekend, the Wheatland Braves are back in action on Oct. 16 (7:30 p.m.) in Hussar against Lethbridge.
The local double-A peewee team will then travel to Okotoks the following day to battle the Oilers Green at 3:45 p.m.