Image Credit: Vernon Vipers
March 19, 2014 - 12:03 PM
VERNON - The Vernon Vipers turned the tables on the Penticton Vees last night in the last thirty minutes of the game for a 5-2 victory.
Vernon's triumph gives each team two wins in the best out of seven series. Game five is set for Thursday in Penticton.
Monday night the Vees took the win late in game three with a final score of 4-3.
For the first time in this series, the team that scored first won, as Brendan Persley put the home team up 1-0 7:59 into the first period. Persley skated down the right-wing and his shot from the circle beat a screened Olivier Mantha on the far-side.
The Vees power-play brought them back levl midway through the opening frame. Nic Pierog took a pass on the left goal-line, turned to his fore-handed, and stuffed a shot through Austin Smith’s wickets at 12:19; Pierog’s first goal in four games.
Riley Alferd broke a stalemate near the eight minute mark of the second, giving the Vees their first lead on the night. Jack Ramsey’s shot from in front went off the glass behind the net but bounced right back out front. The puck eventually skipped to Alferd, who swatted a backhand past Smith’s glove at 7:39; his fourth goal of the post-season.
The Vees were sitting pretty until the final three and a half minutes of the middle stanza. After Penticton failed to get the puck out of the zone, Vernon’s Riley Guenther let a go slap-shot from the blue-line, that went post and in past Mantha at 16:43; Guenther’s first goal of the series and playoffs.
Vernon retook the lead less than two minutes later, as Michael McNicholas was the recipient of a nice feed from Dylan Chanter. The Vipers rear guard threw a slap-pass from the boards to McNicholas at the top of the crease, and he tapped it into an open net at 18:23; Vernon scoring two goals in a minute and forty seconds.
Colton Sparrow put the game out of reach late in the third period, when he capitalized on some sloppy play by the Vees deep in their own end. Persley pounced on a turnover in the corner and fed Sparrow charging off the wall and from the bottom of the right-circle, he slid the puck through Mantha’s legs at 16:43.
Persley put the finishing touches on a first star performance, when he put the puck into an empty-net on a breakaway at 19:30; he finished with a game high two goals and three points.
News from © iNFOnews, 2014