Bees ready for tough road stretch

HIDALGO — Just like nobody was too panicked about the Killer Bees’ 1-3 start, few are celebrating their four-game winning streak.

“It’s so early,” Bees captain Stacey Bauman said. “There’s so many games you just have to… it’s easy to dwell on 1-3, what are we going to do? But, there’s lots of time to make that back up and we’re starting to do that.”

Heading into tonight’s game at Laredo, the Bees (5-3-0) are one of the CHL’s hottest teams, having jumped from last in the Southern Conference to the middle of the standings with games in hand. But, since it’s early in the season, four-game winning streaks can do that.

 Over those four wins, the Bees’ special teams have gone from one of the league’s worst to a group that held Missouri scoreless on 12 power play opportunities while scoring three times with their own advantage. Forwards Daymen Rycroft and Jesse Bennefield have started to show why they are two of the league’s best scorers, while the goaltending and defense have also perked up.

Those trends will have to continue for the Bees to stay hot over their next four games. All on the road, the Bees have to face the Bucks tonight, then start a three-game weekend with matchups Friday at league-leading Odessa, Saturday at defending-champion Texas and then back to Laredo to finish the trip on Sunday. Then on Tuesday, the Bees play host to Corpus Christi to complete a stretch of five games in seven days.”

 “We’ve got to re-focus,” Bauman said. “We’ve got a big week here and we have to come ready to go.”

Though it is early, the next four games should show where the Bees are compared to three of the South’s best teams. In two games with Laredo and one with Odessa, the Bees have only two points and lost 7-0 to the Jackalopes. Two of those games came during that 1-3 start, however, and the 6-5 overtime win at Laredo got the Bees back to .500.

“I definitely think things are clicking,” Rycroft said. “It’s more of an instinct now to know where guys are. But that’s with everything when you get accustomed to your linemates and so forth. You know their instincts and what they do.”

Now, that will get tested on a difficult trip.

“We’ve got to get our hard hats on go on the road,” coach Chris Brooks said. “It’s a tough road trip. Five games in seven nights when we go home to face Corpus… it’s a big part of the month of November.”

Brian Sandalow covers the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436.