Sheridan Hawks Junior Hockey Team Split Home Series Vs. Helena; Regular Season Concludes At Rapid City

Despite splitting games in their regular season home finale vs. Helena this past weekend, the Sheridan Hawks showed that they can hang with the defending NA3HL champs and the top team in the League’s Frontier Division.

In both games, the Hawks led 2-0 after 2 periods.

In Friday’s game, things fell apart early in the 3rd period and the team lost 4-3, but on Saturday, players were able to keep it together and they won 2-1.

All 4 head-to-head games this season were 1 goal contests, with the Bighorns winning 3 of 4.

Sheridan Head Coach J.J. Santagata says he praises how well the players kept their composure and battled to get that win.

“We were just a little bit more urgent, a little bit more competitive. On Saturday night we knew we needed to block a little bit more shots, keep stuff on the perimeter, kill penalties, score on power play chances, so it’s just a testament to their character and how hard these guys have worked this year, so it’s nothing that I personally do, I think it’s just a testament to the guys and the group and the guys that we have in the room right now.”

The Hawks conclude the regular season this Friday and Saturday at Rapid City.

Start times for both of those games is at 7:05pm.

The Sabres are on the outside of the playoff picture looking in, as they are 1 point behind Bozeman, who occupies the final spot.

Santagata says he expects the opposition to come after his team like a cornered animal, and players shouldn’t let it get to them too much if they make a mistake.

“This is the biggest weekend of their year and they’re going to be extremely urgent, they’re going to come out and they’re going to throw everything they got at us, so we just got to do our job. Make sure if we just play like we did this weekend and just clean up little mistakes and just shifts after goals, just letting it go by, just turn the page quickly. Mentality, we try to tell these guys all year is have a short memory, don’t let things get to you too quick, so that’s going to be the M.O. of the weekend is just play urgent, let things go quickly and just do our job in the little details of the game.”

To lock up the #2 seed for the postseason, Sheridan either needs to win 1 game this weekend at Rapid City, lose 1 game in either overtime or via shootout, or hope Great Falls loses at least 1 of 2 games vs. Butte.

If none of those scenarios happen, the Hawks will drop to the #3 seed, as both Bozeman and Rapid City can’t catch up to Sheridan in the standings.

The Hawks and GF split their head-to-head series 4-4, but Sheridan will have the more regular season wins tie-breaker vs. the Americans, regardless of what happens this weekend.