After dropping the first two in a three-game series at home, the U16 Mustangs squeaked out a win in the dying seconds of Game 3 on Feb. 6.
Hosting the Edge School Mountaineers from Calgary, the Mustangs lost 2-1 Saturday and 2-0 Sunday before a 3-2 win on Monday at the Canada Games Centre.
Tied 2-2 with seven seconds left in the third, Mustangs forward Joe Stokes buried the game winner on a breakaway. Teammate Matthew Butler knocked in the first two goals. Gavin Lawrie and Oscar Burgess each with two assists in the game.
The Yukon rep team got on the board in the series opener with a goal from Matthew Butler, assisted by Lawrie.
The Mustangs outshot the Mountaineers 40-19 but just couldn’t beat their goalie in the shutout loss.
“They are one of the most prestigious sport schools in western Canada, so to have Notre Dame and the Edge in the same season is pretty good,” said Mustangs head coach Martin Lawrie.
“We played a fairly solid game on Saturday night. We were up 1-0 late in the third and we got in a little bit of penalty trouble. They tied it up when we had to guys in the box and they got the game winner while we were still shorthanded.”
The Mountaineers play in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League and are currently sixth out of 10 teams in the midget varsity division.
The Mustangs traveled to Calgary last month for some exhibition games against Edge School and some other teams but didn’t log a win against the Mountaineers.
This season is the second for the U16 Mustangs “elite-15” program established by Hockey Yukon for first-year midget players.
Members of the team will play for the Midget Mustangs at the B.C. Hockey Championships in Terrace March 19-22.
“A number of these guys will be going to provincials on the midgets,” said Martin. “We got that together the last few weeks, have had a few practices, and the guys are pretty excited about the opportunity.”
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com