Sheridan Hawks Hockey Team Battling Some Road Weariness While Splitting Games At Butte

The Sheridan Hawks Junior Hockey team have been road warriors for the first part of this season.

They’ve played 11 of their first 14 games on the road and split a 2-game series at Butte this past weekend.

Being on the road as often as the Hawks have been, can sometimes make a team road weary, and Coach J.J. Santagata says while that can be an excuse to some extent, there were a few mistakes made at Butte that should not have been made at all.

“Right now, we’re just having defensive lapses, that we just normally don’t, so hopefully we come back home and we don’t have to use the excuse that we’re playing on the road. Keys to every single game are pretty simple for us. Just start quick and one thing we did not do Friday and Saturday was start quick, but luckily we ended well in that first period, and we played a solid second period, but then after that it was just 5 -on-4, penalty kill power play, really just couldn’t get into a groove 5-on-5 after that.”

Sheridan catches a little bit of a break on the schedule as the team returns home to face Rapid City this coming Friday and Saturday and have next weekend off from competition.

The schedule will eventually balance itself out, as the Hawks don’t play any road games in January and in the early part of February.

Hawks at Butte Recap: (Courtesy Sheridan Hawks)

The Butte Irish claimed a victory at home on Friday night against the Sheridan Hawks.

The Irish got ahead 3-0 in the first period, scoring their first goal about 4 minutes in and going on to score two more not long after.

The Hawks scored their first goal of the night and the last of the first period about 10 minutes in.

The Irish and Hawks both found the back of the net once in the second period making the score 4-2 for the Irish heading into the 3rd period.

The Irish kicked off the scoring in the 3rd period to go up 5-2 and scored their last goal of the night later in the period.

The Hawks put up two more points on the board at the end of the third, but they weren’t enough to surpass the Irish’s lead, with the game ending at Butte 7, Sheridan 4. 

Sheridan’s Daniel Shelden had an impressive three points on the night.

The Hawks’ netminder, John Simon, made 41 out of 47 saves. 

Saturday night, though, was a different story when Sheridan and Butte combined for 11 goals in what ended up being a Sheridan victory for the night.

Six of those 11 goals came in the opening period. Butte potted the first in under a minute right at the start of the game but was quickly answered with two goals from the Hawks. 

The first was from Zach Longnecker, assisted by Vincent Leaf, followed shortly thereafter by Josh Serino, who scored his 11th of the season – and the first of two goals on the night. 

Serino had the assist from Longnecker.  Butte came back at the 11-minute mark to even it up. 

But the tied score didn’t last long as Sheridan finished out the period with a goal by Danny Shelden, with help from Sean Harris, and from Vlad Zubriichuk (assists Serino and Leaf) to race out to a 4-2 lead after one period of play. Serino added his second goal in the second period, with another point gained from an Elijah Farris goal. 

Sheridan padded their lead to 7-2 less than four minutes into the third period with a biscuit in the twine from Kiefer Dunham.

The Irish scored twice in the third to pull the game closer, but it wasn’t enough.

Serino ended the night with four points to power his team to victory on Saturday. 

Hawks goaltender TJ Wonnacott had 44 saves on 48 shots in the win.

The Hawks return home next weekend when they host the Badlands Sabres.