It was a thrilling weekend for the Prairie Hockey Academy's Elite 15 Cougars.

The Cougars put together a great run over the weekend in Calgary, finishing it off with a 5-4 shootout win over the host Edge School in the final of the 2018 Western Sport School Challenge.

"They all stuck to the game plan and worked really hard, they faced a lot of adversity against Edge, who beat us in the round robin, so they definitely deserved it," said PHA coach Micah Abbott.

In their first season in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League, the Cougars have been showing that they’re among the best in the Elite 15 Division.

Their success over the weekend validates the progress that the team has shown over the course of the season.

"Moving forward, it's important to just take it one game at a time, this group knows that they're a good group and this gives them a little confidence," said Abbott. 

The Cougars posted a 3-1 record in the round robin, winning 6-3 over the CNHA Canucks and shutting out the Thompson Blazers, 5-0, on Thursday.

PHA's lone loss of the weekend came on Friday when they dropped a 6-5 game against Edge, but they would learn from that experience.

"We got off to a really good start, but we got too complacent and too comfortable with our first period, obviously Edge wasn't happy with how they started out and they came back to win the game," said Abbott.

"In the second game, we decided that we weren't going to take them lightly and stuck with our game plan the whole time." 

The Cougars finished off the round robin with a 5-2 win over the Pacific Coast Hockey Academy. That win set up a showdown with the Delta Hockey Academy in the semifinal, which PHA won 4-2 to advance into the final.

PHA played another tight game with Edge, but a more consistent effort allowed them to upset the hosts.

"There's been a lot of improvement all the way throughout our lineup -- goaltending, defence, forward -- there isn't a single player that hasn't taken a giant step forward," said Abbott. "We've become more consistent, at the beginning of the year, there would be moments where we'd dominate and there's moments where we struggled a little bit, but just being confident in our skill set and all the guys put in a ton of time, both on ice and in the gym, to try and get better and that’s paying dividends."

The Cougars will now aim to keep the roll going as they head into the final weekend of action before the holiday break. PHA will play four games in three days in Edmonton, starting on Friday against the Okanagan Hockey Academy.

"If we can just continue how we're playing, not trying to do too much and keeping it simple, using our work ethic and our speed to our advantage will be huge," said Abbott. "We're going to play the Burnaby Winter Club, who's top in the CSSHL right now, so that's going to be a really good test for us."

PHA will face the Pursuit of Excellence and Yale Hockey Academy on Saturday before squaring off with Burnaby on Sunday.