Vees give up leads in home-ice loss to arch-rival Warriors
Vees give up 2-0, 3-2 leads in loss to West Kelowna
The Penticton Vees have gotten the better of the West Kelowna Warriors over the years, but their closest rivals have flipped the script so far in 2018-19.
Lucas Cullen scored twice and added two assists and Bennett Norlin broke a tie with 5:53 to play as the Warriors rallied to stun the Vees 5-3 in BCHL action in front of 3,141 fans Saturday at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
Parm Dhaliwal and Eric Olson into an empty net also scored and Chase Dubois carded three assists as the Warriors (10-7-1) beat the Vees for the second straight time this season.
Brock Baier, who stoned the Vees with 52 saves in a 3-2 win Oct. 19 in West Kelowna, was terrific again with 28 stops for the Warriors.
Cole Shepard scored his first BCHL goal, Brendan Harrogate and Cassidy Bowes also clicked and Andre Ghantous had two assists for the Vees (9-6-2).
Jack LaFontaine managed 23 stops in a losing cause.
The Vees came into the game with a full lineup of 20 players for the first time in several weeks. Captain/centre Massimo Rizzo made his season debut and defenceman Kenny Johnson returned from a three-game suspension after forward Luke Loheit returned from mononucleosis for a 6-1 win Friday in Merritt.
The Vees came in with a chance to forge into a tie for first place in the Interior Division with a win and a Merritt loss.
Instead, Merritt beat Victoria and the Vees lost to fall behind West Kelowna and into a tie for third place with the Wenatchee Wild in the division, which sees just six points separating first place from last. The Vees came out meaning business as Harrogate walked out in front and beat Baier for his seventh of the season at 6:55.
The 2002-born star Shepard finally got his first goal after missing numerous chances in the first 16 games. The speedster galloped down the right side on a 2-on-1 break and beat Baier on the blocker side at 18:03.
Penticton rarely surrenders twogoal leads on home ice, but got caught napping in the second period as the visitors bounced back to tie it. Cullen superbly knocked down a long, knee-high stretch pass and got behind the defence to score on a breakaway at 3:16.
Cullen showed some more skill to tie the game on a power play 10 minutes later, batting a pass out of mid-air from in close past LaFontaine to tie the game.
The Vees got a fortunate bounce to reclaim the lead at 3:08 of the third period. Matthew Byrne dumped the puck down the right boards and as Baier came out to play it, the puck caromed right to a cruising Bowes for an easy tapin and his first goal of the season.
But the Warriors wouldn’t quit and Dhaliwal had a Cullen shot deflect right to him on the rush and the veteran beat LaFontaine on the glove side to tie it at 8:22.
The Vees got caught again on the winner as Olson sprung Norlin with a stretch pass and he raced in to beat LaFontaine and give the visitors their first lead of the night at 14:07.
The Vees snapped back to life and sieged the Warriors crease in search of an equalizer. LaFontaine got to the bench for an extra attacker with 2:14 left and the Vees had several chances in close before Olson ghosted in alone to to finish it off with the empty-netter with 38 seconds left.
Cullen, Sheppard and Harrogate were the three stars.
ICE CHIPS: The Vees launch a 13-game month of November with a tough weekend, hosting Merritt Friday at the SOEC before the long trip to Prince George for a game on Saturday against the Spruce Kings. West Kelowna hosts Wenatchee Tuesday to start a home-and-home series … Vees F Cole Shepard left Sunday to play for Team Canada Red at the World Under-17 Challenge in Saint John, N.B. Shepard will miss five games, returning ironically for a home-and-home set against West Kelowna Nov. 13-14.