The Westlock Tier 3 Midget Sabres continue their march to the playoffs with a dominant 4-0 win at home against the visiting Leduc B2 Roughnecks on Feb. 16.
In their last home game of the regular season, the Sabres didn’t allow their opponents any time or space in limiting them to just 16 shots on goalie Breann Dutchak, who recorded her first shutout of the season. “It was nice to see them play hard and to play our game,” said coach Jeff Copeland. “It was nice to get the win in our last home game.”
Despite Dutchak’s stellar shutout performance, Copeland refused to single out any players as having had an especially strong game.
“They all deserved to win,” he said. “It’s not an individual that gets the win.”
Chase Rau opened the scoring for the Sabres 5:10 into the first period with what would prove to be the winning goal. Kevin Mayowski added another goal at 12:39 to make the score 2-0 after 20 minutes.
In the second, Rau added his second of the game with just over three minutes to play, widening the lead to 3-0 after 40 minutes.
Eric Hardinge scored his team’s fourth goal of the game only 88 seconds into the third period, as the Sabres continued to assert their dominance and did not give the Roughnecks a clear shot at beating Dutchak.
The win was the Sabres’ third in a row, and keeps them firmly in the top three of their division, with a strong shot at a first-round bye in the coming playoffs.
The team wrapped up its season on the road over the weekend. They played in Vegreville on Feb. 18, winning 7-2. They followed that up with a matinee on Feb. 19 in Millet, where they tied the home team 3-3.
This means the Sabres have a bye through the first round of the playoffs Westlock will start its second round playoff series in early March.
