It was a tough weekend for the Prince Albert Northern Bears as they dropped a pair of games in Wilcox to the Notre Dame Hounds in SFU18AAAHL action.
Saturday night’s contest saw Notre Dame defeat the Northern Bears 4-2.
Northern Bears head coach Steve Young says that Prince Albert matched Notre Dame in terms of work ethic, but the Hounds were able to execute better
“Similar to what we’ve been doing, we faced a team that worked just as hard as us but at the same time, they did the little things that got them ahead of us this weekend.”
Felicia An opened the scoring on Saturday with a power play goal just over three minutes into the game. Sophia Kuzminski would add another for Notre Dame just over two minutes later.
Claudia Lammers responded for Prince Albert with 2:43 remaining in the second period to bring the score to 2-1 after the opening frame.
Notre Dame would score the lone goal in the second period as Alyssa Rasmuson scored just over seven minutes in to extend the Hound lead to 3-1.
Kyra Anderson would score on the power play just over five minutes into the third to extend the Notre Dame lead to 4-1.
Prince Albert would strike back just over fifteen seconds later as Jacquelyne Chief would pot a power play goal to bring the score to 4-2.
Notre Dame outshot the Northern Bears 47-20 in Saturday’s contest. Brooke Archer turned aside 43 of 47 shots for Prince Albert. Mackenzie Bloom stopped 18 of 20 shots for Notre Dame.
A slow start in Sunday’s game proved costly for the Northern Bears as they fell 3-2.
Alyssa Rasmuson and Kyra Anderson would score in the first period for Notre Dame. Virginia Harazny would strike just under two minutes into the second period and that’s all the Hounds would need on route to the 3-2 victory.
Tristyn Endicott and Jasmine Kohl scored for Prince Albert in the losing effort.
Young says he thought the Northern Bears showed a strong effort after not playing their best against Saskatoon earlier in the week.
“I thought we did, we had no choice but to be involved for 60 minutes. The way Notre Dame plays, they work hard and come at you. You have no choice but to work hard against them and that’s what we did.”
Despite the Northern Bears record being 2-9-0-0 to start the season, Young says that the team is showing promising signs and developing well as they prepare for the Esso Cup in Prince Albert in the spring.
“You can learn against any team you play. When you are playing a team like Notre Dame, they are going to work hard against you and do the little things so we can learn that way. When we did those things, we had the advantage. And to control what we can control. We are where we are in terms of wins and losses, we just have to work hard.”
The Northern Bears return to action on Saturday afternoon when they host the first place Regina Avana Rebels. Puck drops is 1:30 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre.
sports@paherald.sk.ca
