During the Mark Johnston Cup, Joby Baumuller, Chase Surkan and Jaxon Jacobson all played on different teams but you wouldn’t know it from their performance together in the Black and Gold Game.
All three players had multi-point games, with Surkan leading the way with four points, as Team Black downed Team Gold 4-2 in the closing act of training camp. Max Kelly scored the game winning goal for Black, while Memphis Adeniken and Cam Allard scored for Team Gold.
“The first period, we were there but I think we could’ve done better at the same time,” said Baumuller. “Come the second period, we stepped up our game, got a lot more confident and started talking to each other. Plays started coming easily and I thought we had a great game by the end of it.”
Gold opened the scoring, picking up the only tally of the first period when Adeniken redirected home a point shot by Kingston Sauter. Early in the second, Black responded when Baumuller hammered home a shot off a feed out of the corner by Jacobson.
The two teams traded goals to head into the third period tied at two. Allard sniped off the rush after taking a cross seam feed from Brady Turko, while Surkan cashed in from close range after getting a back-door pass from Jacobson, who finished with a trio of primary assists.
“It was a little bit of a slow start, simplifying our game,” Surkan said. “By the second, we got our feet under us and started playing more in the o-zone, got a lot more chances, and buried when we had the chance.”
The two teams traded heavy hits and solid chances through the first half of the third, until Kelly provided the late go-ahead goal, picking his spot from the top of the right circle. Baumuller salted the game away with a backhand finish of a slick passing play that saw Surkan and Jacobson work the puck to him off the rush.
With the Black and Gold game in the books, the job is nowhere near done for the Wheat Kings’ staff. Now comes the tough job of whittling down the two rosters into one for the coming preseason.
“It’s been a really competitive camp,” said Wheat Kings head coach and GM Marty Murray. “That’s one thing we challenged the kids to do at the start is to make our jobs difficult. They’ve certainly done that. Our veterans have done a great job of leading the way, and the young kids have been learning on the fly that this is what it takes to be an every day player. Overall, I’m really pleased with camp.”
The Wheat Kings open the preseason on Friday night on home ice against the Regina Pats.
