The Moose Jaw Chiefs were able to breeze through their first two games this season, including Saturday’s 21-1 win over the Saskatoon SWAT, but they faced a much stiffer test on Sunday in a 13-9 loss to the defending champion Saskatoon Brewers at the Kinsmen Arena.

“It seems like every year the Brewers and Regina we have the best games with and we know that going in, but today we didn’t execute as well as they did and it showed,” said forward Todd Doepker after Sunday’s loss.

After beating their first two opponents by a combined score of 43-3, Doepker said they needed to do a better job of turning it on for Sunday’s game against the Brewers.

“It’s tough to judge (how you’re playing) on those games and you never go as hard when you’re blowing out a team, so you dial it back and then you don’t play hard like you need to against the Brewers,” he said.

“There’s no excuses though because the Brewers have to play the same games too and they were up (big) against Estevan last night, so they had the same game (coming in) that we did.”

The Chiefs sit at 2-1 on the year in the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League’s senior division. They return to the court this Saturday when they travel to Saskatoon to take on the Outlaws.

Brewers 13 Chiefs 9

Moose Jaw jumped out to a quick start against the Brewers in the first period, taking a 4-1 lead just over eight minutes into the game, but the Chiefs were never really able to get control of the game again after that.

Saskatoon fired back over the second half of the first frame to tie the game at 6-6 heading into the first intermission.

The Brewers held Moose Jaw to just one goal in the second and two in the third as they picked up the win.

“It seemed like we just couldn’t get it going, our possessions were a little bit short and we had a few missed passes,” said Doepker. “That whole second period killed our momentum because we didn’t have long possession and we weren’t able to give some guys some breaks on the back-end and our (transition players).”

While missed passes and missed nets plagued the Chiefs in the game, they also ran into a strong goaltender in Lauden Choptuik for the Brewers, who made a number of big stops throughout the game to keep the momentum on his team’s side.

“We have a hard time beating him all the time, so we’re gripping our sticks tight and trying to put it in exactly the right spot,” said Doepker. “That being said, it will come around, it’s early season and the more we have the sticks in our hands, the better it will be.”

Tanner Kittler led the Chiefs with three goals and four points in the loss, while Kyle Dalgarno and Frank Davalos had two goals each.

Taylor Dobrescu finished with a goal and four points, and Jeff Kitts picked up a goal and three points.

Coming out of the game, discipline is one area that the Chiefs will be looking to clean up as they topped 20 penalty minutes in both games on the weekend.

“There was a couple of times that we lost our heads a little bit,” said Doepker. “Early in the first period, we took a four-minute penalty and that was 100-percent one that should have avoided after a goal, that cost us two goals when we were up 4-1, so that’s tough.”

Chiefs 21 SWAT 1

The weekend started with another dominating win for the Chiefs as they rolled to a 21-1 win over the Saskatoon SWAT, who are making their debut in the league this season.

Tyler Dobrescu had a game-high seven points in the win for the Chiefs with three goals and four assists, while Carter Davis and Doepker also found the back of the net three times each.

Mitch Adams and Kitts had two goals and five points each, while Dalgarno and Taylor Dobrescu finished with two goals and four points. Jay Fellinger also scored twice in the win.

Kittler, Davalos and Brock Paul all scored once.

The Chiefs struck for eight goals in the first period and nine in the second before adding four more to their total in the third. The SWAT’s lone goal came midway through the first period.