Wenatchee, WA. – The
Wenatchee Wild let a late lead slip away, dropping a 3-2 overtime contest to
the Vernon Vipers, in front of 3,011 Saturday night at the Town Toyota Center.
After a scoreless first period, Wenatchee’s Mike Coyne (Buffalo, NY) scored from Dakota Raabe (Dana Point, CA) and Kyle Stephan (Barrie, ON) assisted at
2:00, giving the Wild a 1-0 lead. Four minutes later, Jagger Williamson tied it
up for Vernon, assisted by Griffin James and Liam Finlay at 6:00, squaring the
contest at 1-1. But, not quite four minutes later, Wenatchee regained the lead,
as Stephan scored from Raabe and Coyne at 9:55, putting the Wild on top 2-1
after two.
That lead would hold until the final minute of the third.
With the goaltender out for an extra attacker, the Vipers’ Odeen Tufto scored
from Latrell Charleson and Williamson at 19:23, tying the game 2-2 and forcing
overtime.
In the extra session, Jimmy Lambert poked home a loose puck
to settle the contest. Tufto assisted at 4:10, giving Vernon the 3-2 win.
Wenatchee outshot Vernon 35-21 on the night. Chase Perry (Andover, MN) made 18 saves
for the Wild, Adam Shortridge 33 for the Vipers. Wenatchee went 1-5 on the power
play and 6 of 6 on the penalty kill. “That’s a tough one.” said Wenatchee Wild
Head Coach/General Manager Bliss Littler. “Outplayed them most of the night, we
made a mistake in the last minute, that’s a tough one to take. Give them
(Vernon) credit, they hung in there, their goaltender played well. We had our
chances where we should have been up more than a goal, that’s unfortunate. I do
think the penalties cost us tonight. We did a great job on the kill, but the
penalties were, our defenseman down in the end, that’s unfortunate we played
better than that tonight, should have got both points.”
With the win, Vernon improves to 11-12-0-1 on the season,
the Wild slip to 14-5-2-2 on the season, one point behind first-place
Chilliwack in the Mainland Division. Wenatchee hits the road next weekend,
playing at Coquitlam on Friday, November 20th, Chilliwack on
Saturday, November 21st and then Surrey on Sunday, November 22nd.
Battle For The Border
2 comments:
I thought the BCHL was a skating league not a fighting one. The last two teams that came to Wenatchee just wanted to fight. The Wild player would be standing still after the whistle the other team player would knock the Wild player on his ass and nothing was done to stop that kind of play. What was the attendance??
3,044 Friday night, 3,011 Saturday night.
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