DIDSBURY -- It was a great weekend for the Mountain View Colts as they won twice at home, beating second-place Red Deer on Friday and Lomond on Saturday.
With one game left in the regular season (Saturday in Red Deer), the Colts look to be playoff sharp. The Colts will finish third in the Heritage League's North Division, behind Airdrie and Red Deer.
Mountain View head coach Rob Turville said it was great for the Colts to be able to clinch home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
"We were happy," said Turville. "It helped us clinch third place in our division. That was our goal after Christmas. So we did that with one game to go. It was a successful weekend."
Saturday saw the Colts fall behind early after Tyler Rohl scored to put the Lomond Lakers up 1-0.
Kale Wright tied the score a short time later for the Colts at 1-1.
Turville said the Colts got off to a slow start after the big win over Red Deer.
"We definitely didn't have the start we were looking for," he said. "After a big win the night before the boys came out and were a little lackadaisical. We had a pretty good discussion with them after the first intermission and they picked it up. We had a much better second period."
The second period was all Mountain View, as the home team scored four unanswered goals, including a pair from Reed Engman and singles from Mitchell Visser and Trevor Simpson, to take a commanding 5-1 lead into the third.
Sam Kolke put the Colts up 6-1 with a short-handed marker at 15:57 of the third period.
Christian Dees finished out the scoring a minute later with a power-play goal for the visiting Lakers.
Picking up the win in net for the Colts was Griffin Andrews who stopped 22 of 24 Lomond shots.
Colts captain Alan Klinck said the team took awhile to get going but once they got their legs under them it was a good effort.
"It's good to get a few shifts out there," said Klinck. "That's a big team and they throw the body around all game. It's good to match that and get our feet moving. Scoring that first goal really sets the pace for us. It's good to get an early one."
Klinck said after they got four goals in the second they worked on shutting down the Lakers.
"From there on it's defence mode," he said. "We did the job. It's good to end our last home game with a win like that."
Friday at home saw the Colts get past the Red Deer Vipers 4-3.
The Colts struck first Friday with a short-handed goal from Travis Gerrard at 17:08 of the first period.
Goals from Quintin Thorburn, Wyatt Gelinas and Zane Leatherdale in the second stanza pushed Mountain View out to a 4-0 lead.
The Vipers fought back with three goals of their own in the third period but were unable to get the equalizer as the Colts held on for the one-goal lead.
Ethan Woodward got the win in goal for Mountain View after stopping 25 of 28 shots.
Klinck said it's always nice beating the Vipers especially during the stretch run into the playoffs.
"They're one of the top teams in the league," he said. "It was a good game. It's always nice to play well against them. They're right above us in the standings. We got two wins on them now and we're looking to win the season series next weekend."
The Colts will face off against Ponoka, the sixth-place team in the North Division, in a best-of-three first round playoff series starting the week of Feb. 10.
