The Prince Albert Predators extended their winning streak to three with a 16-7 win over the Swift Current Wolverines at the Kinsmen Arena on Saturday night.
Predators head coach Lucas Wells says he liked how Prince Albert competed from start to finish.
“I liked our resiliency. I didn’t think we had a very good second period. Actually, we had a terrible second period. First period was mediocre to our standards. In the third, we kind of turned it on and we battled back, which was awesome. I think our resilience and our no-quit attitude was really good. We stayed out of the box for the most part. All in all, I’m happy.”
Prince Albert held a 6-2 lead after the first period with three goals from Brayden Rieger. Sam Cooper, Chase Lehner and Ryler Prediger also had tallies in the opening frame for the Preds.
Grady Henderson and Ryder Turko got on the scoresheet for Swift Current in the opening frame.
Swift Current would pull within two goals at the end of the second period after Henderson, Ryder Smith, Shane Cornelson and Riley Schafer found the back of the net. Rieger and Matthew Cudmore struck on the scoresheet for Prince Albert.
Prince Albert saved their best lacrosse for the third period and outscored the Wolverines 8-1 in the final frame. Cudmore, Talon Sandry, Cole Barmby (twice) and Rieger (four) had the goals for the Predators. Isaac Froese had the lone marker for Swift Current in the final frame.
Wells says the team was able to find another gear down the stretch.
“I think it was our attitude, the guys are kind of frustrated with how they were playing in the first and in the second and the leadership group between Matthew Cudmore and Braden Shewchuk kind of took over the locker room in between the second and third and just said how they are playing is unacceptable and we just kind of put our foot on the gas and didn’t let go.”
Regina forfeits Sunday afternoon contest
The Mother’s Day contest didn’t go as planned for the Prince Albert Predators.
Prince Albert was scheduled to host the Regina Chaos for a 1 p.m. matinee but the team announced on social media that the game had been cancelled and that Regina had forfeited the contest.
Wells says the Chaos did not travel up to Prince Albert for the contest and that news of that decision was not communicated to him.
“It was about 45 minutes to an hour before the game. We had phoned the league and said, ‘hey, where are they?’. I got a call from the GM of the Queen City Kings, which is the tier one program, and he phoned me at 12:19 and said they weren’t coming down. Now I’m hearing conflicting stories that they did tell the league, and the league never let us know, but that’s all hearsay. As of right now, we’re counting it as a forfeit, and they said they were going to reschedule, but I don’t see that happening in the near future.”
The Predators decided to host an intrasquad game instead which saw Team Blue defeat Team White by a 16-14 final score.
Prince Albert returns to action on Monday, May 19 when they travel to Saskatoon to take on the SWAT. Ball drop is set for 8 p.m.
sports@paherald.sk.ca
