Vees win 12th in a row, beat Warriors
Make that a dozen wins in succession for the Penticton Vees.
Cassidy Bowes scored twice as the Vees defeated the West Kelowna Warriors 5-2 in BCHL action Friday in front of 2,959 fans at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
Massimo Rizzo had a goal and a helper and Taylor Ward and Jackson Keane also scored as the Vees (22-5-1-2) beat the Warriors for the fourth time in five meetings this season.
Chase Dubois scored once and assisted on the other by Jared Marino for the Warriors (17-14-1). It sets up a huge game tonight at 6 p.m. at Kal Tire Place as the Vees take on the Vernon Vipers in a showdown for first place in the Interior Division.
Vernon (22-7-1-4) won 2-1 on Friday in Salmon Arm and leads the Vees by two points, but Penticton has played four fewer games.
Adam Scheel had another fine game for the Vees with 33 saves for his league-best 14th win.
Nik Amundrud made 28 stops for the Warriors in a losing effort.
Rizzo opened the scoring at 7:22 as he deflected home Joe Leahy’s shot from the left half-boards.
Marino tied it with 46 seconds left in the period as he stuffed home his own rebound on the backhand.
Vees forward Grant Cruikshank left with an undisclosed injury in the period and did not return.
But the Vees responded with a superb second period.
Ward put the home team ahead at 1:26 as he drove hard to the net and had a rebound of Nicky Leivermann’s shot carom in off his leg. Rizzo started the play with a magnificent pass from the corner to hit Leivermann in stride.
Owen Sillinger appeared to put the Vees up by two at the fiveminute mark, but the goal was waved off for incidental contact after Leivermann was pushed into Amundrud.
The Vees squandered a 5-on-3 power play for 1:36 midway through the period, but they kept coming. Bowes, allowed to walk into the slot, wired a hard shot just under Amundrud’s arm at 13:10.
In the third, Bowes stole the puck and beat Amundrud with a nice deke at 12:11 to make it 4-1. Dubois cut it to 4-2 with a power-play goal at 15:37.
The Warriors got Amundrud to the bench for an extra skater with 3:19 left but Keane finished it with an empty-netter with seven seconds left.
Bowes, Rizzo and Scheel were the three stars.
The Warriors take on the struggling Trail Smoke Eaters tonight at 7 p.m. at Royal LePage Place.
Vipers 3 Silverbacks 1: Keyvan Mokhtari and Chris Jandric scored in a span of 2:22 late in the second period and Vernon held on to win at Shaw Centre in Salmon Arm.
Sam Anzai got an empty-netter with one second to go, while Hudson Schandor scored for the Silverbacks (12-17-3-0) in the first period.
Ty Taylor made 21 saves for Vernon, and Reid Cooper made 24 saves for Salmon Arm.
The Wenatchee Wild beat the Centennials 7-4 in Merritt and stayed two points behind the Vees and four back of Vernon.
ICE CHIPS: With defencemen Jonny Tychonick and Ryan O’Connell playing for Team Canada West at the World Junior A Challenge, the Vees called on D Trevor Isaksson from the Valley West Hawks major midget team to fill out the lineup. Tychonick was named an assistant captain on an all-BCHL leadership group for Canada West. Powell River F Carter Turnbull is captain, while Vernon F Brett Stapley and Prince George F are also assistants. Canada West plays its first round-robin game at the six-team competition in Truro, Nova Scotia, on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. PT against Czech Republic . . . . West Kelowna scratched injured forwards Matt Kowalski, Chase Stevenson and Bennett Norlin. Stevenson was hurt at the Canada West selection camp earlier this week in Calgary.