The Sheridan Hawks Junior Hockey Team took care of business against one team that was trying to catch up to them in the standings, and are now getting ready to play another team that’s right behind them.
This past weekend, the team won a home and home series vs. Gillette with scores of 8-3 and 8-4.
Josh Serino scored hat tricks in both games.
Head Coach J.J. Santagata says when the games were being played 5-on-5, the Hawks did great, but work is needed on both sides of the power play.
“I think we just came out, we just executed little details, face off plays were really great, getting pucks to the net were great, finding 2nd and 3rd opportunities were great. I think our special teams honestly were really really bad this weekend, but to walk away with 4 points and only score 1 power play goal and let up 3 penalty kill goals is obviously not ideal, but still walk away with 4 points and I think 5 on 5 we played really well, so I was happy with that.”
Up next is another trip to Great Falls, Montana.
The Americans are right behind Sheridan for 2nd place in the NA3HL Frontier Division, and are the only team so far to have success vs. first place Helena.
Coach Santagata adds these 2 teams have split their 4 head-to-head games so far this season, and the Hawks are expecting a challenging weekend.
“They have some new guys since we haven’t seen them in about a month, so we know they’re going to be a good team, coming off beating Helena 1-0 in Helena and then winning their last 3 games as well. They’re an extremely good team, they play a good structure, they’re physical, they’re simple, so we know we’re going into a dogfight. It’s going to be a game that is going to basically be like a playoff atmosphere, so we’re just going to treat it like it’s round 1 of the playoffs and we just got to get 1 game done at a time and hopefully just take care of Friday night and see what happens Saturday.”
The puck drops at Great Falls on both Friday and Saturday at 7:05pm.
The Hawks will be back at home on Friday and Saturday, December 6th and 7th vs. Cody.
Hawks vs. Gillette Recap: (Courtesy: Sheridan Hawks)
The Sheridan Hawks and Gillette Wild played a home and away weekend series, but while they split the travel the Hawks took both the wins.
Friday night the Hawks played before a home crowd at the Whitney Rink in the M&M’s Center.
Early in the first period, Sheridan’s Josh Serino got things started with a goal, assisted by Zach Longnecker and Vincent Leaf.
Kiefer Dunham got the Hawks another goal with assists from Daniel Shelden and Elijah Farris.
The Wild weren’t out of the fight though, and tied it up to initiate the second period with a goal from Tai Kontrec to put the Wild on the board, and then one from Brady Johnson to even it up.
Derek Laite, assisted by Logan Hume and Connor Hulett, added another goal for Sheridan to move them ahead again.
Longnecker got assisted by Leaf and Serino to move the Hawks backup by two to end the period.
In the third, Hume with help from Kadin Edwards and Gavin Elliott got a goal, and Serino, assisted by Leaf and Longnecker, added another.
Gillette kept up the pressure though, and Brady Johnson netted the puck a minute later to bring the game a little closer.
But the Hawks responded by adding to their lead with one from Tyler Kemp, with help from Vlad Zubriichuk and Ernest Allen.
Serino then scored another, his third of the night, assisted by Leaf and Hume, to end the game with a final score of 8 to 3.
Hawks goalie John Simon made 44 saves for the Sheridan Hawks in the win.
Saturday night the Hawks made the trip east to play before an excited group of Gillette fans.
Once again the game was fast paced and hard fought, with the action being much closer than the final score would suggest.
The Sheridan Hawks got off to a fast start, scoring each of the first three goals of the game.
First off to put the biscuit in the basket was Eli White on a power play, assisted by Keifer Dunham.
Serino followed up two minutes later, with an assist by Longnecker, to move the Hawks to a 2-0 lead going into the 2nd period.
Keeping up the momentum, Dunham got one by the Wild netminder off an assist from Charlie Stow two minutes into the start of the period.
However, the Gillette Wild stormed back to make a game of it. In fact, they tied the game 3-3 heading into the third period, two of them on power plays from a Hawks slashing and then an interference call.
In addition, the Hawks lost the bench services of Head Coach JJ Santagata who was ejected following an attempt to dispute a fighting call and game ejection of Vincent Leaf.
But the Hawks players didn’t let that phase them and came roaring back into the game with a short handed goal from Serino, assisted by Logan Sidlauskas.
Zubriichuk scored next, with help from Serino and a Sean Harris to regain a 2 point Sheridan lead.
Hume then added another assisted by Allen to solidify the advantage.
The Wild managed just one more goal and then it was the Hawks the rest of the way with two unassisted goals, one from Serino and the last from Hume to make it 8-4 and put another one in the win column.
Josh Serino scored a hat trick while adding an assist to lead his team to victory away from home, his second of the weekend and his 3rd hatty in his past three games.
Once again Simon had a great night between the pipes, stopping 33 shots for the win.
Sheridan currently is at 15-5-2-0 and holds the second seed in the Frontier Division.
Serino holds on to his place as top goal scorer in the league and third in total points.
The Hawks are away this weekend to play the Great Falls Americans and return home on December 6 & 7 when they host the Yellowstone Quake in their final games before the NA3HL Showcase in Blaine, MN and the holiday break.
