The Battlefords North Stars win streak hit 11 in a row Tuesday as they followed up on their weekend sweep of La Ronge with a wild win over the Nipawin Hawks.
The game at the Civic Centre took several twists and turns and took until the final seconds to decide. But it didn’t look that way early on. The Nipawin Hawks stormed out of the gate so fast that it looked like the North Stars would finally meet their match.
The Hawks scored three straight goals as Carson Erhardt, Brodie Girod and Michael Makarenko filled the North Stars net by the 8:28 mark. The barrage chased the previously-unbeaten Adam Dmyterko out of the net, leaving his replacement Parker Rey to bail out Dmyterko and preserve the winning streak.
At the 14:21 mark Rylan Nivon got his seventh of the season, Matthew Fletcher and Seth Summers assisting, to cut it to 3-1.
Then in the second period, it was the Quintin Loon-Stewardson show. With Nipawin on the power play, he picked off a Hawks puck and went in and scored a shorthanded goal on Ross Hawryluk at 16:54.
Then at 18:56, the Hawks gave the puck away to Loon-Stewardson again right in front of their net, and he scored again unassisted for his 12th of the season. It was all tied at 3-3.
In the third period the North Stars took the lead on Nivon’s eighth goal at the 8:09 mark with Elijah Loon-Stewardson and Fletcher assisting. Matthias Urbanski scored from Kaden Boser shorthanded at 11:01 to make it 5-3.
But Nipawin refused to quit. Goals by Jake Tremblay and Max Johnson tied it up at 5-5.
With time running out, Rylan Nivon scored his hat trick goal with six seconds left, Fletcher and Quintin Loon-Stewardson assisting.
That sealed the deal for the North Stars. Parker Rey got 19 of 21 saves, bailing out Dmyterko who remains undefeated all season. The North Stars outshot the Hawks 45-28 in the game.
The North Stars record now runs to 18 wins and one defeat, nine points ahead of Melfort for first place in the overall SJHL standings.
On Saturday night the North Stars return to the Civic Centre again to host the only team to record a victory over them this season, the Yorkton Terriers.
