Regular Season Comes to a Close for the Wild

The Gillette Wild Junior Hockey Tier III team (30-14-4) closed out the regular season on Saturday with a 7-1 win over Bozeman (1-47) on the road.

Captain Tyler Cavan netted 4 goals, including a natural hat trick in the 3rd period and he finished with a total of 6 points. Cavan also assisted on Moco Willis' goal in the 1st period, which gave Gillette and early 1-0 lead and he also helped out on Taylor Motsinger's 2nd period goal, which gave the Wild a 3-1 lead heading into the final intermission. Overall for the game Cavan was a +5 along with Sean Kelley while Moco Willis finished at +6 as he added 3 assists to his 1st period goal.

Also scoring for the Wild in the franchise best 30th win of the season was Bobby Solari who added the final tally of the game on assists by Steve Patafio and Trent Dillinger.

Goalie Sean Kelley had another great game against the Icedogs as he made 23 saves on 24 shots while his counterpart Jude Hull made 47 saves on 54 shots.

Through the regular season Motsinger and Cavan were the top 2 scorers in the America West Hockey League (AWHL). Motsi finished with 105 points with 47 goals and 58 assists and he had a league best 7 short handed goals. For Cavan he had 96 points on 46 goals and 50 assists and nobody in the AWHL had more game winning goals than he did with 7.

Now the Wild have their sights set on the 1st round of the AWHL Playoffs, which begin on Friday, March, 8th in Cody against the Yellowstone Quake (35-11-2) in a best of 5 series. The 1st games will be played in Cody with game 3 at Spirit Hall Ice Arena in Gillette as will games 4 and 5 if necessary. The Quake won the regular season series 3 games to 5 with two of those games going to overtime. Game 1 and 2 will be at 7:30pm. Game 3 and 4 at 7pm and Game 5 at 4pm.

For more on the Wild go to http://gillettewildhockey.pointstreaksites.com/view/gillettewildhockey