A wacky, high-scoring third period between the Diamond Energy Female Midget AAA Wildcats and Saskatoon Stars ended with the Stars taking a 6-3 victory last night.

The two teams were scoreless through the first 20 minutes of play, with the Wildcats getting out-shot 6-2, and successfully killing off a pair of hooking penalties.

It took nearly 32 minutes of game-play for the goose egg to be broken, as the Stars struck first.

Makena Kushniruk buried the game’s first goal on a 2-on-0, with 8:22 left in the second.

Then, with 2:07 remaining in the middle frame, and the Wildcats on the PK, the Stars scored the final goal of the second period, as Joelle Fiala ripped home a wrist shot.

That’s when the goal-scoring started to come in bunches, and off some tough bounces, as well as tough angles.

Chace Sperling gave the Stars a 3-0 lead just over two minutes into the third with a crazy redirection off the shaft of a stick that fooled Harper Davey in net for the Wildcats.

Then, just 36 later the Stars increased their lead with a goal from Kaylee Baun from a tough angle.

What looked to be the metaphorical ‘nail in the coffin’ came with 11:29 remaining in the game, as another tumbling puck found its way home for the Stars on a shot from Abby DeCorby.

Down 5-0, the Cats broke out of their goalless slump with a trio of unanswered plays.

With 7:12 remaining, Kenedee Klevgaard put Swift on the board from the side of the net, on feeds from Crystal Wale and Carissa Hogan.

Then, on another wave of heavy forechecking late in the game, the first line for Swift put one home. Brooklyn Rublee found Taylor Lind, who dished it out in front of the net to Ashlee Wolfe, who cut the deficit to three with 5:57 left.

Just over two minutes later, the deficit was trimmed to two, as Carissa Hogan fed the puck up to the point, and rookie defenceman Shelby Rublee ripped a puck on net, deflecting off a Stars player, and just tumbling over the goal line.

For Rublee, the youngest Wildcat, it was her first SFMAAAHL goal.

That was as close at the Wildcats would get though, as Saskatoon scored the game’s final goal with 2:59 remaining. Calli Arnold must have slid the puck no more than a millimetre over the goal line.

“I give our kids credit, we again stuck with it, we played with a little bit more energy late in the game, and we really got to the net, and we were able to find the back of the net a couple times,” said Wildcats head coach Terry Pavely.

“Overall, we were pretty happy with the way we played. We weren’t bad today – the score probably wasn’t a reflection of the game, it was probably more of a 3-1 game. I hope our kids leave the rink tonight thinking we can play with that team.”

Again, the Wildcats’ quality chances early in the game weren’t able to find the back of the net, opting for a later push instead. Shifting that success to the first 20 or 40 minutes comes down to simplicity.

“One of the things we’ve got to do a better job of early-on is getting pucks deep, really forechecking hard, and just trying to get the momentum of playing in their end. Sometimes we try to do too much early,” said Pavely.

“That’ll be our message Saturday – just keep it simple early. If we can get through the first five minutes and get pucks deep, and maybe make it a little tougher on their D early, maybe that shifts the game at the start.”

Despite the late push falling short, Pavely took pride in his team’s resiliency, including in the final 45 seconds with the net empty.

“The real positive is we do find a way late in games – we stick with it and I like that. We’ve just got to make sure that (that push comes) early in the game. We joked that maybe first faceoff in the offensive zone, pulling our goaltender and playing 6-on-5, because even today when we pulled our goalie, we played in their end the whole time. Our kids have really bought into what we try to do 6-on-5.”

“We just want to make sure we get those better starts, because we always expend so much energy late always trying to come back, it’s really hard against good teams to mount big comebacks.”

The Wildcats were out-shot 27-20 in the game.

The two teams play the rematch this afternoon at 2:15 p.m., in the final game before the Christmas break.