The Creston Valley Thunder Cats went into Saturday night’s game in Kimberley as underdogs and kept the score close for 40 minutes before succumbing to the Eddie Mountain Division-leading Dynamiters.
With only 23 points on the season, Creston now has less than one-third of Kimberley’s 76 points, but a scrappy effort and strong goaltending kept the T-Cats in the game.
“We hung right with one of the best teams in the league,” head coach Nick Redding said on Monday. “We had a couple of unfortunate bounces on the power play that ended up in the back of our net. I thought we executed very well and we generated chances for ourselves all night. Eric Samyn was solid in net and gave us every chance to win that game. Need a little bit of cleaning up in our defensive zone but overall we played hard and had times we were the better team.”
Brady Daniels put the Dynamiters up by a goal after 20 minutes of play, but Aiden Wong (Trail Thompson and Andrew Clark) tied the game five minutes into the second period. Spencer Kennedy and Keegan McDowell put the home team up 3-1 but Thompson (Carson Small and Wong) narrowed the gap to a single goal with three minutes left in the middle frame.
Creston ran out of steam in the third period, being outshot 15-6 and outscored 2-0. Carter Spring and Neil Kingston rounded out the scoring.
Wong was named the game’s away star for his 2-point night and Eric Samyn played well in goal, turning away 40 of the 45 shots he faced.
Creston’s next action is in Nelson on Friday and in Golden on Saturday night.
The Kelowna Chiefs lead the KIJHL as of Monday with 77 points, ahead of the Dynamiters by a single point. The Revelstoke Grizzlies are close behind with 74 points and the Nelson Leafs follow with 62 points.
Carson Small is the only Thunder Cat to crack the league’s Top 40 scorers, with 41 points in 43 games, good for 36th place among KIJHL scorers.
