The North Okanagan Midget Knights went 4-0-1 to claim the Lumby Stars Midget House Hockey Tournament last weekend.
Riding high on adrenalin, and with only an ice clean between games, the Knights rolled over the fatigued host Stars 7-2 in Sunday’s final.
The Knights earlier clipped Ridge Meadwows 3-2 in semifinal. Dayton Procter’s goal tied it up in the middle of the third, and Josh Ell appeared to seal the deal for the Knights with 1:40 to play.
However, a mad scramble in the North Okanagan goal crease resulted in a penalty shot against goalie Brenden Honeyman. The resulting goal tied the game at 1:09.
Levi Power fired the winner on a blast from the ringette line, high glove side.
Solid goaltending from Liam McOnie and Honeyman pushed the Knights to 5-1 and 4-2 Saturday wins over Kelowna and Kamloops respectively as Power and Dusty Copeland (who notched a hat trick on his way to game MVP) went to work.
McOnie’s shutout effort dissolved as a desperate, odd-man rush by Kelowna finally put them on the scoreboard with 61 seconds left.
Sunday’s 6 a.m. puck drop brought with it a rude awakening for the Knights in the form of the fired up Corbett Office Plus Cowboys, who carried much of the play in a 3-3 tie.
Procter, Layton Theodore and James Krahn scored for North Okanagan.
Justin Ramsey scored twice for the Cowboys, while Nik Wasylyk tied it up in the third period, from Scott Latwat and Jeremy Clark. Goss was stellar in net and Wasylyk took a beating in front of the net and was game MVP.
The Cowboys defeated the Kamloops Honey Badgers 4-0 in their opener Saturday morning. Austin Goss made a great toe save to preserve the shutout, and was the game MVP for the Cowboys.
Mitchell Lukacs scored twice and Wasylyk supplied 1+2 to spark the Cowboys, while Brett Mitchell had a single.
The Cowboys then lost 5-2 to Kelowna with Sam Whitelaw and Ben James getting the goals. Yager Krenz and Goss shared net duties, while d-man Nat Wilson was game MVP.
The Cowboys played one of their best games of the season in front of a loud hometown crowd before falling 4-3 in overtime to the Stars in the semifinals.
Scoring for the Cowboys were Dustin Folliott from Lukacs, Wilson, on a bullet shot from the point, from Scott Latwat, and James on a rebound after Lumby goalie Mike Britch stymied Lukacs on a thrilling coast-to-coast rush, with 4:33 left.
Captain Brad Haslam scored all three goals for Lumby in regulation time, and then registered the overtime winner on a sweet shot that went in off the post.
Krenz was the game MVP in net for the Cowboys.
Said Corbett Office head coach Dan Wilson: “I was proud to get the good compliments from Lumby coach Kevin Porteous and North Okanagan coach Darren Fiddler. During the handshake after the game, both coaches said we had the best games of the tournament.”
