(Ben Tompkins/northeastNOW)

By Ben Tompkins

Up into second place

Shorthanded Mustangs pull out gutsy win over North Stars

Mar 2, 2024 | 7:11 PM

The Melfort Mustangs grabbed arguably their guttiest win on Friday night, a 4-3 victory over the Battlefords North Stars.

Despite being on the road and only having 10 forwards dressed, one of which was an affiliate, the Mustangs beat the North Stars and jumped over them for second place in the SJHL standings.

“Pure heart and character, those guys go to battle every night and especially coming in really short, good on them, we’re very proud,” assistant coach Tye Scherger told northeastNOW.

“We talked about this weekend that we had the chance to jump to second, and not even that but we came in short, the guys came to play, they worked hard every shift and we’re super pumped that we came out on top.”

The scoring didn’t begin until the second half of the game when Clay Sleeva and Aidyn Hutchinson somehow got on a 2-on-0, midway through the second.

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Battlefords then scored twice late in the period, one of which came on the powerplay, as the North Stars had seven straight-man advantages.

Melfort didn’t let the poor officiating get them out of the game, however, as they killed off a full two-minute 5-on-3 early in the third, following it up with three straight goals of their own.

Tao Flory scored one on a breakaway for his first career SJHL goal, while Austin Shepherd also buried one in all alone for the second goal of his career, each of which has come in his last two games.

“Obviously, you can’t let penalty trouble get your head, if refs aren’t going our way it’s fine, you stick to it. On the bench I was talking about adversity, we’re killing 5-on-3s, we kill it off and we got the win, so that’s adversity for the boys,” Scherger added.

“Especially when we come in short, we got to use our younger guys. They come ready to play at all times, so good for Flory getting his first one and Shepherd for getting his second one.”

The Stangs will now do it all again tonight with second place in the SJHL up for grabs for the second straight night.

With a win, the Blue and Green would increase their lead to three points, pick up their sixth win in a row, hand the North Stars their fifth consecutive loss, and sweep the season series over Battlefords.

“We gotta come out with lots of energy, play good defence in all three of the zones, and make sure we’re on top of the puck at all times as we can’t get caught on turnovers because they’re a very skilled team,” explained Scherger.

“Obviously, if we stay on top of all that, we’ll be just fine again tonight.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8