CALGARY - Team Alberta overcame two one-goal deficits en route to a 3-2 victory over Team Saskatchewan Thursday night at the 2019 WHL Cup.
After a scoreless first period, Saskatchewan opened the scoring 1:16 into the second, but Connor Gourley answered for Alberta just over a minute later. Saskatchewan took the lead again moments later, but Alberta took a 3-2 lead in the final frame thanks to goals from Billal Noori and Rieger Lorenz.
Team Alberta then held off Saskatchewan in the third to earn the win, moving to 2-0 in round-robin play. Lorenz was named Alberta’s Player of the Game.
Alberta held the edge in shots 31-25 over Saskatchewan. In his first start of the tournament, Nicholas Jones made 23 saves for the win.
"Hats off to them (Saskatchewan), they played a great game, it was a hard-fought battle," said Team Alberta Assistant Coach Cody Reynolds. "From a coaching perspective, I like it. There’s a lot of growing from this, and when a game happens like this early in the tournament and you have a lot of really good learning experiences from it, you just build on that. At the end of the day, we got the win, we found a way to do it, we had lots of guys step up and do a really good job, so we’re really looking forward to tomorrow."
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Team Alberta closes out round-robin play on Friday with an all-important matchup against Team BC (2-0), with first place on the line. Game time is 6:00 p.m. at the Markin MacPhail Centre at Winsport in Calgary.
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