The Warman Wildcats are one step closer to the Saskatchewan AA Hockey League (SAAHL) U13AA provincial championship.
The Wildcats earned the league’s North Division title after defeating the Saskatoon Fury in two straight games.
They downed the Fury 7-3 in Game One of the North Division final series in Warman on Tuesday, March 26, and followed that up with a 5-3 win in Saskatoon on Friday, March 29 .
The Wildcats now lace up against the South Division champion Swift Current Broncos in a best-of-three series beginning this week.
Game One of the provincial SAAHL final is slated for Tuesday, April 2 at the Warman Home Centre Communiplex at 7:15 p.m. Game Two is in Swift Current on Friday April 5, and Game Three, if necessary, is back in Warman on Sunday, April 7 at 6 p.m.
Kobe Pellack led the Wildcats’ attack in Game One against the Fury on Tuesday, March 26 with a seven-point night, registering three goals and four assists, while Carson Jones had two goals and two assists and Caleb Philp had a goal and an assist. Meanwhile, Warman goaltender Ty Keyowski stopped 34 of 37 shots.
Danel Ramazanov, Wyatt Bitz and Braxton Goettler scored for Saskatoon, while their goaltender Clark Sokoluk also faced 37 shots between the pipes.
In Game Two against the Fury in Saskatoon March 29, the Wildcats jumped out to a 1-0 lead midway through the opening period with a power play goal by Caleb Philp and added two more markers in the middle frame by Cole Nakrayko and Jesse Scriven.
The Fury narrowed the gap in the third period with two goals in succession by Danel Ramazanov and Braxton Goettler.
Nakrayko restored the Wildcats’ two-goal margin with just under five minutes remaining in regulation; but Ramazanov once again scored for Saskatoon less than a minute after that to make it 4-3 for Warman.
Kobe Pellack netted the Wildcats’ fifth goal of the game with just 46 seconds left on the clock, and he and his teammates held off a concerted Fury attack as the seconds ticked down to a wild celebration at the final buzzer.