Warriors lose final home game of regular season, 5-1 to Vees

The West Kelowna Warriors surrendered four second period goals in a 5-1 loss to the visiting Penticton Vees in what was their final home game of the regular season at Royal LePage Place on Tuesday night.

The Warriors played the first period tight with the Vees, and the hosts opened the scoring at 13:15. Quin Foreman rushed down right wing and buried his own rebound off the left pad of Vees netminder Mat Robson for his 25th goal of the season.

West Kelowna applied most of their pressure in the first, firing 13 shots Robson, who made 12 saves. At the other end, West Kelowna netminder Gabriel Morency stopped all seven shots he faced in the frame.

The Vees took over the game in the 2nd period with four goals in the frame. Jamie Armstrong started the scoring with a power-play goal at 2:18, banging in a rebound from the top of the crease that bled through Morency and squeaked across the line to make it 1-1.

Four minutes later, at 6:31, Penticton made it 2-1 with a shorthanded tally, as Grant Cruikshank cut across the blue line and put a shot under the glove and over the pad of Morency. The goal was the Vees’ sixth shorthanded marker of the season against the Warriors.

The Vees kept the goals coming, and, eight minutes later at 14:17, it was 3-1, as the visitors struck with their only even strength marker of the period. The Warriors failed to clear the puck from their own zone and a pass from the corner found Ty Amonte all alone in front as he outwaited a sprawled Morency.

Another power-play goal closed out the period. With just 8.8 seconds left in the frame, Nic Jones scored his 10th goal of the season against the Warriors, as he found an open net off a rebound during a 5-on-3 man advantage. The goal, which made it 4-1, was his 23rd of the season.

The Vees put 13 shots on the Warriors’ goal in the middle stanza, with Morency making nine saves. Robson wasn’t tested much in the frame, facing just eight shots and stopping them all.

The third period saw just one goal and it came courtesy of the Vees and yet again on the power play. Chris Klack closed out the scoring by beating Morency with a glove side shot from the left face-off circle at 11:53.

Morency turned aside 28 of 33 shots in the loss, his 3rd of the season while Robson continued his dominance against the Warriors with 29 saves on 30 shots.

It was Robson’s 33rd win of the season and his seventh against the Warriors this season.

West Kelowna (27-27-2-0) was 0-for-4 on the power play. Penticton (40-13-2-0) was 3-for-5.

The three stars were all from Penticton: Grant Cruikshank (1-1-2), Ty Amonte (1-1-2) and Gabe Bast (0-2-2). The attendance at RLP was 1,186. The Warriors conclude their regular-season schedule this weekend with a pair of road games. On Friday night, West Kelowna visit the Merritt Centennials (22-25-8-0). Game time is 7:30 p.m. Then on Saturday night, the Warriors will visit the Salmon Arm Silverbacks (22-28-3-0) at 7 p.m.

In Interior Division standings, Penticton is first with 83 points, with Vernon (29-18-5-0) in second with 67 points. West Kelowna (56) is tied for third with Trail (25-25-5-0, 56). Merritt (54) is