The second half of the WHL season started great for the Moose Jaw Warriors with back-to-back wins over Regina and Brandon, but it ended on a sour note as the Pats got some revenge on Saturday night.

The Warriors had went into Regina on Thursday night and controlled the Pats for sixty minutes in a 4-3 win at the Brandt Centre.  They followed that up with a comeback 4-3 win in Brandon on Friday.  But, the end to the three-in-three weekend just didn’t go the tribe’s way though as nothing went right in front of a sold out crowd at Mosaic Place, losing 5-1.

“I think Regina came in here with the mindset that they needed two points and they did everything right,” explained Mark O’Leary, Warriors assistant coach, after the game.  “You really noticed them on the fore check, they were first to loose pucks, they were winning every puck battle, especially early on.

“We didn’t get pucks deep and a lot of time they were standing us up right at the blue line and we were turning pucks over and chasing most of the night.  I thought the first two games this weekend, we did a great job of chipping in behind their defence and using our speed to get to pucks first and (Saturday) it was the other way around.”

The Warriors collected four of a possible six points on the weekend, but still gave themselves something to work on as they head into another week of practice.  “We weren't doing what we needed to do to get pucks out of our end, we were throwing pucks away a lot and we need to clean that up in practice this week,” said leading scorer Sam Fioretti.

Defensive zone play has been big for the Warriors throughout the first half of the season, but they gave up over 30 shots in two of the three games and 29 in the win over Regina on Thursday.  “I think it starts with our D zone, that's something that we've been fairly consistent with all year long, even when we've been losing games, we're losing them by one goal and not giving up more than two, or three, goals most nights.  It's good to have a few days this week to work on that and hopefully we do that going forward,” said O'Leary.

Tanner Eberle has been leading the Warriors offence through the first three games of the second as he picked up three goals and five points.  Brandon Potomak continued his strong play as well with a goal and two points in the three games.

O'Leary says Potomak, who's playing in his first full WHL season, has really started to look more comfortable on the ice over the last month, “He's blessed with a lot of speed and he's starting to get it, I think he's understanding when to use his speed and when to pull back a little bit and give teams a different look.”

The next stretch doesn't get any easier for the Warriors as they will practice over the three days at Mosaic Place before loading up the bus for very tough three-in-three weekend in Alberta.  They play in Calgary on Friday night, Red Deer on Saturday and then Lethbridge on Sunday.