Matthew Serratore scored a pair of goals, including the overtime winner as the Penticton Vees tied their BCHL Interior Division semifinal series with the West Kelowna Warriors at one.
Serratore’s winner Tuesday night at the South Okanagan Events Centre came at 3:43 of overtime when he spun around and fired a puck that hit Miles Gendron, who was brought down trying to make a play towards the net. Serratore spun and fired a shot that beat Warriors goalie Scott Patton five hole.
“Just kind of summed up the night,” said Serratore. “We had a lot of chances down low and we finally finished.”
Patton was stronger in Game 2, making 44 saves, compared to his performance in Game 1.
The Warriors built a 2-0 lead in the last half of the second period on goals by Nicholas Rutigliano and Andrew Johnson. The Vees nearly cut the lead in half before the period ended, but Patton shut the door with a huge right pad save on Lewis Zerter-Gossage.
“The save he made at the end of the second period to keep it at 2-0, we were like holy smokes,” said Vees coach-general manager Fred Harbinson.
The Vees finally solved Patton in the opening two minutes of the third on a Serratore marker. Gendron fed Mitch Newsome the puck and he fired a hard shot at Patton who let out a big rebound. Serratore pounced on it beating the outstretched goalie. A little more than seven minutes later, Demico Hannoun scored the equalizer on the power play, the Vees’ first in eight tries. Dakota Conroy set up Hannoun, who was able to beat Patton through his arm at the side of the net.
The Vees killed off all four of the Warriors power plays.
“I think we felt that we played pretty well. We had a lot of shots on net,” said Serratore. “We had our chances, their goalie played well.”
Harbinson said he was proud of his group. After making two mistakes that resulted in goals, the staff talked to the players between periods about what they needed to do.
“Told them to get their chins up,” said Harbinson. “It’s not something to start dwelling on things that have happened already, but what’s ahead of us. I thought we played with the most energy in the third period that we played of all periods in this series. We came at them hard, got the two goals.”
Miska, who allowed two goals on 12 shots in the second period, was solid in the third and stopped two shots in overtime to finish with 30 saves.
Game 3 and 4 shift to West Kelowna’s Royal LePage Place on Friday and Saturday.
