The Castlegar Rebels forced the series against the Beaver Valley Nitehawks into Game 7 after a win on Friday night.
The first period ended scoreless, with both the Rebels’ Curty Doyle and the Nitehawks’ Liam Coulter facing a number of strong shots on goal.
In the second, the Rebels’ Andrew Petten took two minutes for boarding and not only did the Rebels kill the penalty but Brady Daniels, assisted by Chris Breese and Aiden (Bo) Cornell, ran the puck into the Nitehawks zone and fired it past Coulter to score the first goal of the night.
Coming back out in the third the Rebels kept up the momentum and Breese, assisted by Shawn Campbell and Reid Wilson, scored a second goal for Castlegar.
The Nitehawks amped up the pressure, but Doyle and the Rebels d-men — special mention goes to Dallas Goodwin who has been aggressive in clearing the front of the net — held them at bay until Nolan Percival, assisted by Damon Kramer and Kevan McBean, found the net and got the Nitehawks on the board.
The Rebels made some solid forays into the Nitehawks’ zone, but with desperation setting in Beaver Valley pushed for the net and the Rebels focus was on denying them a second goal — which they did.
The game ended 2-1 for the Rebels and the two teams will face off in Game 7 at the Castlegar Complex on Sunday at 2:15 p.m.
Bill Rotheisler, head coach and general manager for the Rebels was pleased with the outcome.
“We felt that we’ve had a game plan overall and we’ve had to evolve and they’ll evolve on Sunday as well, so our focus has to be on Sunday,” he said.
Rotheisler complimented the Nitehawks on their penalty kills and was also pleased with his own team’s penalty killing performance.
“Our penalty killers, we have about six guys, we have a main four, but we have six guys that we put in a rotation there and they’ve been dynamic all year,” he said. “They’ve been a tough crew to play against.”
Rotheisler added that he felt the game was well officiated.
