In a battle between the east coast Halifax Thunderbirds and the west coast Vancouver Warriors, it was fitting that the star of the game was Halifax defender Ryan Terefenko. Multiple times, he went from the defensive end to the offensive end, or coast to coast, to score his first career hat trick and add two assists to propel the Thunderbirds to a 10-9 victory over the Warriors at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.
“It’s cool, obviously. My job is not scoring goals, but when the team needs (a goal) maybe in and out of games and in transition, sometimes you just got to step up. They were just going in today. I got a little lucky, but I’ll take it,” said Terefenko.
Ryan Terefenko is in his fourth season with the Thunderbirds. The 26-year-old was drafted 27th overall by Halifax in the 2020 draft out of Ohio State University. He had only field lacrosse experience before being drafted, never playing box lacrosse before according to a story by the Halifax Chronicle Herald. But his athleticism caught the eye of the Thunderbirds, and they were right to bet on him. Terefenko is one of the quickest and most agile players in the league. Able to explode up the floor with the ball and is always a threat to score. In 57 career games, he’s scored 23 goals, 38 assists for 61 points and has collected 499 looseballs.
“He is just getting better every game he has been with us,” said Thunderbird’s goaltender, Warren Hill. “He is picking up the box game really well. And something that he has you can’t teach, just that pure athleticism and readiness. If we give him the ball, we know no one is taking it away from him, and no one is catching him. I’m glad he’s on our side, and it is really special to see the success he had tonight.”
Hill was outstanding as well, stopping 29 of 38 shots and withholding Vancouver from a goal for a 25-minute stretch in the middle of the game. Even in a losing effort against Rochester last game, Hill made several amazing saves to keep the Thunderbirds in it. It is a great bounce-back for him after an unideal start to the season. In his first four games he had a 13.58 goals against average and a 74 save percentage. Now, he is back in the groove.
“I ultimately had to figure it out and play through it,” said Hill. “As a team and even for myself, the start of our season didn’t go our way, and I took it to heart. Just had to play through it and figure it out, watch more film and change things here or there to fine-tune my game.”
Vancouver opened the scoring a minute and a half into the game. Marcus Klarich blew by Mitch Wilde to get in on goal to score.
Halifax’s captain, Cody Jamieson, responded three minutes later. He had the ball at the top of the horseshoe on a delayed penalty and fired it past Vancouver’s goalie, Aden Walsh.
Ryan Terefenko gave the Thunderbirds their first lead of the game two minutes later. He was in a one-on-one battle with Vancouver forward Johnathan Peshko in transition and managed to maneuver around him with a few spins to give himself enough space to shoot and score.
Terefenko explained what is going through his mind when he’s deciding to attack in transition or hang back to let the offence get set up.
“It’s a lot of different things. Did we just play a long defensive shift, and did they just get another possession. Is our offence scoring a lot of goals five-on-five. How far am I from the net, and how far is someone from me. There is a lot that goes into your mind. Sometimes you just have to shut your mind off and let it go, and there was probably one or two of those where I said, I’m going to shoot this and see what happens.”
Mike Robinson later scored to stretch Halifax’s lead to 3-1.
Vancouver responded 20 seconds later with a goal from Adam Charalambides. Keegan Ball and Kevin Crowley also scored to give the Warriors the lead at the end of the first quarter.
But Vancouver wasn’t done. Ryan Martel opened the scoring in the second quarter with a power-play goal to make the score 5-3.
The Thunderbirds answered. Terefenko passed the ball to Clarke Petterson, who was coming off the bench behind the defence, and he went in alone to score.
With three minutes left in the half, Randy Staats got called for spearing, but it would be Halifax that would be dangerous on the penalty kill. Terefenko passed the ball to Dawson Theede, who ran up high and scored. Then, off the face-off, a tic-tac-toe goal between defenders Jake Withers, Graeme Hossack and the goal-scorer Terefenko put the Thunderbirds quickly up 5-6.
Halifax kept the pressure up to start the second half with Theede opening the scoring.
Ryan Terefenko completed the hat trick a minute later. He took the ball in transition with a ton of space on the left side and fired it into the back of the net to make the score 8-5.
Halifax wasn’t done with the transition goals with Jake Withers getting another. Four out of Halifax’s ten goals were scored by the defence.
“It’s something we’re able to do if need be,” said Terefenko. “That’s a really good defence. They play a good five-on-five defence, and we knew our offence was definitely capable of scoring, but their defence is good, their goalie is good, and sometimes it is easier to score in transition.”
Vancouver broke their offensive drought with 4:27 left in the third quarter. Kevin Crowley was open running down the floor in a 3-on-2 situation. He received the ball up high and fired it into the back of the net to give Vancouver their first goal in 25 minutes. Marcus Klarich added another for Vancouver to make the game 9-7 going into the fourth quarter.
The Warriors opened the scoring in the fourth. Johnathan Peshko picked up a loose ball off the boards to the right of the Halifax net. Surprisingly, he shot the ball behind his back and scored to get the Warriors within one.
Clarke Petterson and Ryan Martel traded goals to make the game 10-9.
Vancouver pressed for the final goal, but Warren Hill shut the door to seal the win for the Thunderbirds.
The loss drops Vancouver’s record to 4-4. The Warriors are back home on Friday to face the Calgary Roughnecks. While the win propels Halifax’s record to three wins and four losses. Thunderbirds prepare for a showdown against the Philadelphia Wings during the next two weekends.
“I think we played solid throughout parts of every game this season and this was like the first one where it came together through all four quarters and a really finished product,” said Terefenko. “We’ve come close. I don’t think our record shows how good of a team this is, and we look forward to stacking a few (wins) on top of one another.”
