At many points over the past couple of seasons, the TS&M bantam AA Bruins were having difficulties scoring goals in bunches over some of their tougher opponents.
That disappeared Saturday as the Bruins won 7-3 over the Saskatoon Stallions, handing the Stallions their first loss of the season. The game was one of two the Bruins played last week. The night before they were beaten 5-2 at home to the Prairie Storm Extreme Hockey.
“We had a pretty good bounce back game from (Friday) night and the boys worked really hard for what we got today,” said Bruins head coach Blaine Chrest. “It was nice to put seven up on the board. We’ve struggled to score goals this year and we were trying to go for rebounds and we banged some in.”
Blaize Siebert scored 4:47 into the first period and later in the period, Declyn Henderson scored on the power play to give the team a 2-0 lead. While Saskatoon scored before the end of the first the Bruins regained their two-goal lead in the middle of the second with a power play goal from Carson Birnie.
An explosion of goals in the third period came from early markers by Birnie, Jordan Marcotte and James Mann and the Bruins cruised the rest of the period.
The final goal of the game was scored by Mann. Jackson Miller stopped 20 shots for the win in net.
Friday, Broken Dukart and Birnie scored for the Bruins. Miller and Joshua Bittman split time in net in the loss.
Chrest has been happy with the balance of scoring he’s gotten from the Bruins’ top three lines.
“It’s nice to compete with the northern teams,” said Chrest. “We’re going to be up next weekend to play there and they let you play a bit more, and be a little bit more aggressive. We’re a big aggressive team. There were a couple of penalties (Saturday) that won’t be called up north. We’ll be happy to get up there and see how we’ll match up against those big, tougher teams.”
Saturday, the Bruins will battle the Martensville Marauders and Sunday they will take on the Saskatoon Maniacs. Their next home game will be Nov. 10 at 5:15 p.m. against the Regina Monarchs at Affinity Place.
The Bruins also got word of their pool placing at the annual Graham Tuer Memorial Bantam AA Challenge tournament in Regina Oct. 25-28. They are in a pool with the Stallions, Prince Albert Pirates and Regina Aces.
“I think we’ll match up well with everyone there,” said Chrest. “There’s a Vancouver team we won’t know much about. There’s a couple of Manitoba teams that are pretty good. We’ll go and do our best and we’ll see how we stack up against other provinces.”
