Rustlers Hockey Start the Second semester with Four wins
The Lakeland College King's Energy Group Rustlers kicked off their second semester with four straight victories but needed to battle hard to win each game.
On the January 20 and 21st weekend the Rustlers hosted the SAIT Trojans for their first games against their southern rivals this season. The Rustlers came out flying Friday night where they controlled most of the play outshooting the Trojans by 20 – 6 in the first period alone and finished the game outshooting SAIT 42 – 18. Although the shots on goal were not close, the final score was as the Rustlers got one puck past the Trojan tender of the stick of Hailey Carothers, and squeaked out a 1 – 0 victory.
On Saturday the game was not as defensive as the previous night.
SAIT opened the scoring in the first period before the Rustlers came back with three unanswered goals to go to the dressing room after the first period with a 3 – 1 lead.
Over the next couple of periods, the pace of play slowed, but the Rustlers continued to pepper the Trojan goalie finishing the matinee game outshooting the visiting team by a 48 – 21 margin and winning the game by a final score of 5 – 2 to complete the weekend sweep.
January 27th the Lakeland College Kings Energy Rustlers traveled to NAIT to take on the league-leading Ooks. Before the Christmas break, the Rustlers lost in overtime and were looking to come out on the winning side this time.
As the previous weekend the Rustlers came out hard and pushed the pace of the play and scored the first goal off the stick of Asha Petrie before the end of the first period. The Ooks started to settle in an had several scoring opportunities in the second period, but Mackenzie Dojhan kept the Ooks at bay making a number a great saves.
The Ooks evened the score after applying a fair bit of pressure on the Rustler's in the third period. With under two minutes to go the Ooks scored the go-ahead goal before the Rustlers scored the equalizer with the goalie pulled on a shot from Ava Cole.
In overtime, Olivia Mann took a pass on a two-on-one break and put it passed the NAIT goalie to give the Rustlers the win.
Saturday night the Rustlers hosted the Ooks and were looking to extend their winning streak to 5 games.
The Rustlers came out firing on all cylinders scoring three goals in the first period, two from Hailey Carothers and one from the stick of Mykayla Pylypow which resulted in a goaltender switch for the Ooks.
In the second period, the Ooks came out more inspired and scored their first goal of the evening resulting in the teams heading to the dressing room after the second period with the Rustlers up 3 – 1.
NAIT pushed the pace of play in the 3rd period and applied a significant amount of pressure on the Rustlers which resulted in two additional pucks making it to the back of the home teams goal. The Rustlers were unable to score the go-ahead marker and for the second night in a row, the game would go into overtime to decide who would be the victor.
The first overtime period solved nothing, and in the three-on-three overtime period with 10 seconds left, Hailey Carothers stole the puck from the NAIT defense and scored on a point-blank shot to seal the victory and complete the first-ever hat trick for the Rustlers in ACAC competition.
Next up for the Rustlers will be their final home and home series against the Red Deer Queens. The Rustlers will host the Queens on Friday night February 3 at the Russ Robertson arena before they get on the bus and head back to Red Deer on Saturday.