(Mat Barrett/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Overcoming Adversity

Lolacher, Carson, Ukrainetz lead shorthanded Trojans to big victory over Regina

Dec 7, 2019 | 12:58 PM

The Tisdale Trojans spoiled the party in Regina on Friday.

Heading into the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League game between the Trojans and Regina Pat Canadians, Tisdale had lost three in a row, while Regina had won nine straight contests.

On top of that, the Trojans only dressed three natural defencemen. All things seemed to be going against the Trojans on paper, but when all was said and done, the Trojans walked away with a 4-2 win. Assistant Coach Daven Smith said with all their injuries, and the other adversity they face, they keep teaching the boys to fight through.

“When things aren’t going our way, we’re not going to shut down,” he said. “We’re teaching the boys all about adversity and how to overcome it and what not.”

“We’ve got guys walking around on crutches, we’ve got guys puking at home right now and we hand over our roster and we have three [defencemen] there, and lots of people are laughing but with our gameplan and the heart we got, we get an outcome like that.”

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Tisdale only managed 13 shots on goal in the contest, Smith said they just needed to capitalize when the opportunities came.

“We knew coming into this game that we were going to have to bury on our chances when they were there,” he said. “And that’s what the boys did tonight, so obviously that helped produce the outcome we got there.”

The offence started with about eight minutes to play in the first when Kalen Ukrainetz made a nice pass to Mack Carson who was crashing the net and was able to wack the puck by Jared Thompson for a 1-0 Trojan lead.

Carson repaid the favour in the second as he entered the zone, slid to the boards and dropped a pass back for Ukrainetz whose lethal wrist shot beat Thompson to make it 2-0 Tisdale. After two periods, Tisdale was being outshot 34-9, yet held the lead.

In the third, the Trojans decided to add on to their lead as Carson forced a turnover on Thompson, leaving an empty net for him to fire his second of the night. That chased the Pat C’s netminder after allowing three goals on 10 shots. Drayden Ramage didn’t fare much better in the Pat C’s net as Ukrainetz made no mistake on a breakaway to make it 4-0. All of that took place before one minute had ticked off the clock in the third.

Blake Swetlikoff and Kyren Gronick scored 30 seconds apart to make it 4-2, but that’s as close as the Pat Canadians would get. They fired 45 shots towards Trojan netminder Hunter Lolacher, but Smith said they were able to keep the high danger chances to a minimum.

“They got a lot of rubber on Lolacher, but there was lots from the outside,” he said. “Even when they had us hemmed in for the most part, we were keeping them to the perimeter. So obviously that’s going to happen, give Lolacher easy pucks to stop, even if he’s seeing that many.”

Tisdale was also able to hold SMAAAHL leading scorer Cal Caragata off the scoresheet. He was on a 14 game goal scoring streak heading into the contest.

The Trojans improve to 12-11-0-1 on the year, good for 25 points and a tie for seventh place.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6