Sheridan Hawks Junior Hockey Team Split Games At Gillette; Prepare For Weekend Series At Cody

The last 3 weeks of the regular season are going to be interesting, as 4 teams jockey for the final 3 playoff spots in the NA3HL’s Frontier Division.

Helena has already wrapped up the #1 seed.

After splitting last weekend’s games at Gillette, the Sheridan Hawks and Rapid City are tied for #2 and #3, and Great Falls is 1 point behind both at #4.

Then there’s Bozeman who’s on the outside looking in, and are only 2 points back of the final playoff spot.

Great Falls travels to Rapid City for a 2-game series this weekend, Bozeman plays a 2-game home-and-home series against Helena, while Sheridan plays a 2-game series at Cody.

Hawks Head Coach J.J. Santagata says there should be no excuse for losing either game on Friday and Saturday and it’s the last chance for the team to fine tune a few things that need to be worked on.

“I don’t really care what the score of the games are this weekend. Every game that we’ve played Cody, it’s been maybe 10-0, 8-0, 5-1, 7-4, I don’t really care. At the end of the day, I just want to see us improving on things and also building on things that I think we’re doing well, so like, tracking. I think trying to get numbers above the puck extremely quickly, not allowing odd man rushes, I think we’re doing well on that, we just need to continue to do well on that and not just have the game of ‘O yeah, you know we’re playing this team like it doesn’t really matter,’ so offensive habits, we want to see continuously getting better, defensive breakouts we want to see getting better and then obviously special teams, so we just want to continue to improve on things and then build on the things that we’re doing well.”

Including this weekend, Sheridan and Bozeman have 6 games remaining on their schedules, while Rapid City and Great Falls have 4.

Hawks at Gillette Recap: (Courtesy: Sheridan Hawks)

Friday night the Wild struck first and with a power play goal 5 minutes into the first period.

Sheridan tied it up briefly when Elijah Farris netted one on a Hawks power play with help from Jeff Slivon.

The Wild though regained the lead with under a minute left in the period. 

At the start of the second period, Gillette made it a two point lead with another goal.

But, in the closing minute of the second, Eli Farris scored an unassisted goal to bring the score back within one point.

The third period went scoreless until the last 14 seconds when the Wild sealed the deal with an empty netter to make the final 2-4. 

TJ Wonnacott made 33 saves for the Sheridan Hawks and Wylen Cambensy made 32 saves for the Gillette Wild.

The Sheridan Hawks and Gillette Wild engaged in a bit of a shootout on Saturday night.

Both teams recorded double-digit shots in each of the three regulation periods.

Moreover, they both finished with more than 40 shots on goal.

In the end, the visiting Hawks came out victorious.

Vince Leaf put in the first goal of the game, assisted by Eli White on a Gillette penalty kill. 

Ten seconds later though the Wild responded with a goal of their own. 

A minute following Elijah White tickled the twine with help from Josh Serino. 

All three of these goals occurred in the first 6 minutes of the period, with the remainder of the 1st being scoreless. 

The Wild came racing back though to start the next period with a goal just under 90 seconds after the end of intermission. 

At about midway through the second period, Danny Sheldon took advantage of another Hawks power play to give the lead back to Sheridan with an assist from White, his second of the game.

In the third, Vlad Zubriichuk put one in the net with help for Kiefer Dunham, and Ernest Allen’s unassisted goal gave the Hawks a three goal lead. 

Gillette narrowed that to two points in the final minute of the game but couldn’t stop Sheridan from harvesting a 5-3 victory. 

John Simon had 38 saves in the win.