Sooke Midget A Thunderbirds won against both Campbell River and Kerry Park this past weekend.
In Campbell River on Sunday, Jan. 16, Clay McClimon, Sasha Perron and Zach Lafontaine each scored for Sooke, with assists going to Tom Kirk, Derek McDougall and Ryan Litoski. Nick Dueck kept Campbell River off the board until they scored mid-way through the game, when all they could get past was a single. Sooke won 3-1.
On Saturday at SEAPARC a repeat of Sooke’s winning performance on Kerry Park’s ice the previous weekend didn’t look certain. As the first period wound down, neither team had scored, then Kerry Park got a shot in past Brandon Gibb with less than two minutes to play in the first.
This fired up the Sooke boys as team captain Lafontaine grabbed a pass from McDougall and rammed it in the Kerry Park net. Then Nick Pfeifer sealed the lead in the final seconds of the period, assisted by Cole Navarrete.
Kerry Park didn’t even come close to catching up after that. McClimon nailed one early in the second, assisted by Keltan Chandler. Then Chandler scored twice off assists from Navarrete and Litoski. The defence team worked its end to keep Kerry Park off the board with several outstanding saves from Gibb.
Lafontaine wrapped up the game with a final goal near the end of the third period, assisted by Litoski, for a 6-1 win.
The Novice 3 Thunderbirds were in action on Sunday morning against the Juan de Fuca Grizzlies.
The Thunderbirds were looking to continue their dominance of the Grizzlies and defeat them for the fourth consecutive time.
The Grizzlies knew this was going to be a difficult road game and came out firing on all cylinders. Buoyed by some stellar goaltending and opportunistic offense, Juan de Fuca led 2-0 after the first period. The second period started with an inspiring shift from Ireland Greenhough, Jayme Vivian and Matthew Ryan that ultimately led to Greenhough’s first goal of the game. After Chris Piatkowski scored to make the score 3-2 Sooke’s momentum waned as the Grizzlies countered with three unanswered goals to take a 6-2 lead.
Ben Ackinclose gave the Thunderbirds some life with a late second period goal to cut the deficit to 6-3. The third period featured dominating play by the Thunderbirds as Greenhough, Piatkowski and Tyler Fogarty scored goals to give Sooke their first lead of the game at 7-6. In addition to their exciting offensive play, Justin Parker, John Richardson and Owen Phipps anchored the defense in support of Ian Macdonald who was playing his third game of the year in net for the Thunderbirds. But the Grizzlies tallied two goals late in the third to break their four game losing streak and left Sooke with a 9-8 win. The coaches were pleased with the ‘birds’ furious comeback but lamented what could have been if the team had played a full 60 minutes. The team has a couple of weeks to work on some things until late January when Kerry Park visits.