The Prairie Hockey Academy played a pair of tight games over the weekend at the Barkman Arena.

They’re coming away happy with the effort put into both contests, despite coming up short in both games, falling 3-2 in regulation on Saturday and 3-2 in overtime on Sunday to the Saskatoon River Kings.

“We battled hard through the whole game,” said PHA captain Noah Schindel after Sunday’s loss. “We got that last second goal, and that was exciting, and we just got beat in the end in OT, but we played well.”

On Sunday, PHA trailed 2-1 late in the game, but Ethan Peters point shot found its way through into the back of the net with just 19 seconds to play to tie the game up and force overtime.

Saskatoon’s Jaeden Mercier won the game just 1:05 into the extra frame.

“We all played strong the whole game, we were all working hard, giving it 100-percent, we wanted to win after last night, we wanted to beat them,” said Schindel.

“I’m really proud of the boys, we left it all on the ice.”

Peters scored both goals in Sunday’s loss, while Schindel, Caelan Fitzpatrick and Atley Calvert picked up assists in the OT defeat. 

Calvert scored the opening goal in Saturday’s game, but the River Kings scored three straight to take a 3-1 lead after two. Evan Callaghan scored midway through the third to make it a one-goal game, but that was as close as PHA was able to get to Saskatoon.

While the end results weren’t there for PHA over the two games, they’re looking to build off their effort this weekend as they prepare for a busy weekend coming up.

“We’ve progressed a lot, our passing keeps getting better and our skating and hockey sense has really improved, so we’re just looking to keep going,” said Schindel.

PHA will be in Lethbridge, AB coming up this weekend for a Minor Midget AAA Tournament, starting on Friday.