There’s room for improvement, but the Moose Jaw Midget AA Mavericks escaped with a win in their season opener on Thursday night.

Goalie Shakara Chutskoff turned away 44 shots and Cassidy Murphy scored early in the third period to lift the Mavericks to a 3-2 win over the Regina Ravens at the Bert Hunt Arena in the South Saskatchewan Female Hockey League.

“For the first game, we did really good just getting a feel for the game and getting use to playing together, and the girls did really well,” said Chutskoff after the win.

Regina controlled much of the play throughout the game, but despite posting 15 shots each in the first and second period, they could only manage to beat Chutskoff twice.

The Ravens threw 16 shots on the Moose Jaw in the third period and Chutskoff stood tall for all of them to preserve the win after Murphy scored just 4:30 into the final frame to break up the tie game.

The Mavericks battled back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game in the second period.

Allee Gerrard and Alexis Petford put Regina up by two early in the second, but Kaelyn Logan-Pemkowski and Breanna Shaw were able to score just 56 seconds apart midway the frame to even up the game.

“I’m excited about how they played, lots to work on still, but a good start to the season,” said Mavericks head coach Morgan Wilson.

“Our defence played really well, our forwards came back and helped out a lot on the back end, but definitely defence was our strong suit tonight.”

Moose Jaw managed to throw 25 shots on the Ravens net, while going 0-for-5 on the power play and 5-for-5 on the penalty kill.

The Mavericks will be back on the ice next Friday when they host the Ravens for a rematch at the Red Knight Arena.