With only three games remaining, the Rockyview junior B Rage are looking to finish the season with a .500 record after they split their weekend series with the Calgary Sabrecats and the Olds Stingers on June 8 and 10 bumping their record to 6-9 on the season with three games remaining. The team's first game against the Sabrecats was a high-scoring, back-and-forth affair with a total of 21 goals between the two teams including 12 in the third period. Calgary opened the scoring early in the first period with a goal just two minutes in, but it was quickly answered by Rage forward Austin Lousier to knot the game up at one. It was stay that way until the 4:45 and 3:36 mark of the period, as the teams would once again exchange goals, Rockyview's coming off the stick of Josh Olsen who fired a shot past the Calgary goaltender to once again even the score. At the end of the period, the Rage were on the receiving end of some unfortunate luck, with Calgary scoring a goal in the dying seconds of put them up 3-2 heading into the second frame. Calgary would double their lead to 4-2 just before the midway mark of the period, but the Rage came roaring back to score three straight goals in the remaining 10 minutes of the stanza, with Austin Lousier, Brad Yakiwchuk and Zach Kosack all chipping in, a preview of what was to come in the third period. Calgary tied the score at five within four minutes of the third starting, which was then responded by Austin Lousier who completed his hat trick with the goal, but the Sabrecats scored three of the games next four games with a Josh Olsen tally sandwiched in the middle, putting Calgary up 8-7 with only six minutes remaining in the game. Brad Smith would tie the game up, but the city based team went on to score three consecutive goals stretching their lead to 11-8 ... Rockyview would score two goals in the final minute, but weren't able to find the equalizer as the scoreboard read 11-10 in favour of the visitors. The Rage had a day off before returning to game action on June 10 against Olds. The Stingers opened the scoring less than five minutes into the game to give the visitors an early 1-0 lead. The lead was short lived though as Zack Welcher scored back-to-back goals to push Rockyview back in front at the end of the first period. The second quarter was a bit more crazy with each team scoring three goals, Rockyview extending their lead to 4-1 on goals by Brad Yakiwchuk and Brad Smith before Olds replied with three goals of their own to tie the game up ... Austin Lousier put the home side back in front as he scored with :56 seconds remaining to once again put the Rage back in front 5-4. To start the third frame, Olds once again evened the score at five but Rockyview turned the tide of the game, scoring five of the next six goals off the backs of three goals from Austin Lousier and two from Brad Smith, extending the lead to 10-6. The Stingers would score twice in the remaining few minutes to bring the game within two, but that was as close as they'd get with the Rage winning the game 10-8. "We played quite well on Sunday against Olds ... we played them earlier in the year (a 7-6 overtime loss) and we thought we had a shot to win, but we'd have to play well to beat them and we did. We got a lot of really good efforts from the boys and it showed with the results," Rage head coach Kent Proctor said of the pair of games. "On Friday against Calgary, we really should have had that game. There are a number of factors that went into why we lost, but essentially what it boils down to is I didn't have the boys well enough prepared and didn't have them ready to go. It was a game we should have won and it would have been a four game win streak for our team (including an exhibition game) which would have been kind of nice but sometimes that's the way it goes." "We took a lot of penalties in both games, which is something we'd like to clean up but our penalty kill and our goal-tending was really strong in our win (on Sunday) but on Friday we weren't there and weren't ready to go." Proctor also commented on the fact that he felt like his team was maybe looking past the competition during their game against the Sabrecats. "There was motivation to win on Sunday for sure because I think the boys thought we could have won that game early in the year so they remembered that team and had a good feeling going into the game," Proctor said. "I think we were kind of looking past the Sabrecats, but it wasn't in anticipation of Sunday's game it was just because of looking at the standings and results, our team thought they were going to win Friday night ... we had some players coming back from injury and grad, so to have players who were a bit rusty and be overconfident, it probably not the best recipe for success, which means I could have done a better job of preparing them to execute the game plan." The Rage will now have a pair of games on June 16 and 17 the first coming at home against the undefeated Red Deer Renegades before taking to the road to take on the Sylvan Lake Yetti.
