By Mat Barrett

Mustangs in narrow loss to Bruins

Dec 2, 2018 | 10:02 AM

The Mustangs made it close late on, but couldn’t pull off the comeback Saturday night against the Estevan Bruins at the Palace in Melfort to wrap up Parent-Billet Weekend.

The Bruins opened the scoring with a powerplay goal about nine minutes into the first period off the stick of TJ Irey. That was followed by a Mustang powerplay goal, courtesy of Justin Ball with about three minutes to play. That goal extended Ball’s point streak to 27 games.

The Bruins got the lead back just over a minute into the second when Michael McChesney grabbed his 15th of the season. About three minutes after that, Justin Ball tied things up once again for the Mustangs with his 29th goal of the season. About eight minutes into the frame, the Bruins got another powerplay goal, this time coming from Johnny Witzke to make it 3-2. Turner Ripplinger scored a shorthanded goal for the Bruins to extend the lead to two goals heading into the third.

Shawn Parkinson stopped 13 of 17 shots over two periods, but he was replaced with Hunter Arps to begin the third period. Melfort would battle, and press hard but were only able to score with about four minutes to play in the game, making things interesting. The Mustangs weren’t able to grab  that elusive tying goal, leading the Mustangs to a 4-3 loss.

Head Coach Trevor Blevins said the Mustangs were a little better than the night prior where they lost 5-2 to Yorkton.

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“At times I thought we were better.” Blevins said. “Certainly didn’t like the goals against that we gave up, that was a lack of effort and commitment. I also thought if we played like we did in the last ten, fifteen minutes, then I thought we would probably have a better result tonight, as desperate and hard as we were.”

Blevins is confident that his team will adjust, and be ready.

“Disappointing when a group has been so confident and hard, and taking pride in not getting scored against, and then it looked like just a lack of commitment there at times. It’s ok, it’s fixable, and we will make sure it happens.”

The Mustangs are now 20-8-1-0 on the season and are back in action on Friday, Dec. 7 when they have a road date with the Melville Millionaires.

mat.barrett@jpbg.ca