It was playoff-style hockey in Shaunavon on Sunday night.
Both the Badgers and the Leader Flyers had their lowest goal totals of the White Mud Hockey League season as Shaunavon took Game 2 of the WMHL championship series 3-1.
As you heard on Country 1490's Local Sports Live, Luke Hunter's two goals led the way for the Badgers as they took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five final.
Hunter had the lone goal of a close first period, his 5th in four playoff games.
"I thought we came out a little slow," said Badgers defenceman Ryden Lingenfelter. "We were able to try to claw our way back in to get our feet moving and ended up just playing our game and just getting pucks to the net and just kept finding those greasy goals."
Anton Yatsyshin scored his 4th of the playoffs early in the second period as the Flyers tied the game.
Hunter then converted a Lingenfelter rebound to restore the Badger lead. Derek Thomas added some insurance 15 seconds later as he ripped a puck by Flyers goaltender Martyn Clift from a tough angle.
"I think just all of us as a team, we just talked it out on the bench and just said, we just got to bear down and just get pucks in the net and that's all we did," Lingenfelter said. "Beautiful goal by Luke, and then Derek comes back and a nice goal from the corner there. It's just everyone buying in and realizing that it's time to go, we got to go."
The Badgers knew they were in for a battle with the Flyers.
"Leader is a good hockey team," Lingenfelter said. "They've got a lot of guys who've played really good hockey and so it doesn't matter if you went 6-1 or 3-1, right? You've just gotta find ways to score goals and keep their goal scorers from putting the puck in the net and we did a good job of that tonight."
Shaunavon is now a game away from completing an undefeated run through the regular season and playoffs.
"Just after the game here, we all said it's just three more periods and we've been working for this all season," Lingenfelter added. "We just got to go play 60 more good minutes and that's it for us. But obviously with provincials, we won't be done after that. We've just got to keep building and hopefully double banner here."
The Badgers are also in the midst of a Senior C Provincials run that will finish with a best-of-three championship series against Rosetown.
They have not yet determined dates and times for that series or the remainder of the WMHL final.


