Story by Jared Thiessen (Portageonline.com)
The Portage Terriers lost a 2-1 battle to the Steinbach Pistons on Friday night at Stride Place. The MJHL and the Terriers honoured head coach Blake Spiller before the game with presentations of a commemorative jersey and a plaque. The awards were to recognize his achievement of becoming the all-time coaching wins leader in the regular season.
The Terriers got their lone goal from Cam Bullinger, who snapped a wrist shot home from between the faceoff dots. Bullinger’s goal was his 12th of the season, and his fourth point in as many games.
Noah Szabo scored both goals for the Pistons from similar areas on the ice. The smooth-skating defenseman scored two goals, both in the area between the ringette line and the blueline with traffic in front of Jayden Catellier, giving the Terrier netminder little chance to stop the puck. Both of Szabo’s goals were scored on the powerplay.
Bullinger notes that there are positives to take into their game.
“Just match their physicality and keep capitalizing on the powerplay.”
Netminder Jayden Catellier stopped 18 of 20 in the loss. He notes that on some nights, the bounces aren’t in your favour, and feels that tonight was one of those games. He also mentioned that he feels like there are positives to take into the game against Winkler.
“Compete and battle like tonight, and those bounces go our way, maybe we get the powerplays next game, that’s how it goes.”
Spiller and the team now look to add to his win total on Wednesday when the dogs welcome the Winkler Flyers to Stride Place.
