Okanagan sets early season tone with home victory over TRU

The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack rolled into Kelowna on Saturday night for a first place showdown against Okanagan College that saw the Coyotes ultimately hang on for a crucial 2-1 victory.

The first period offered chances for both teams but Okanagan carried the play and scored the only goal of the period when Curt Morrison converted a nice set-up from Sasha Golin at 16:53 to give the home team the lead. The Coyotes created some good scoring chances but Wolfpack goaltender Riley Wall stood tall and made a number of excellent saves to keep the score at 1-0.

Thompson Rivers came out strong in the second and took the game to the Coyotes. TRU had many excellent chances to tie the score including power play opportunities with a 5 on 3 midway through the period. Coyote net-minder Adam Butler was spectacular and on at least two occasions simply robbed Wolfpack shooters of sure goals. Even with Thompson dominating the period, OC was able to add to their lead when Travis Pfelferle went wide around the Thompson defense and beat Wall to the far post on a wrap around to make the score 2-0 at 11:11 of the second. It was OC’s first shot of the period.

The game got even more interesting for the Coyotes as they lost one of their top defensemen in Dave Mann to a boarding major at 17:15 of the frame and had another five minute penalty kill.

The third period saw TRU starting on the power play again having the territorial advantage and better scoring chances. The Coyotes were very good on the penalty kill but at the 9:00 mark Lucas Daoust converted a rebound of a point shot and scored on the 43rd puck directed at Butler on the night. The WolfPack pressed hard for the equalizer but the Coyotes netminder was stellar and kept the score at 2-1.

Brock Munro had a chance to give the Coyotes a two-goal lead but hit the post on the empty net and OC was able to hang on, in a frantic final minute, for the victory.

“It was a tough game to win”, said Okanagan head coach Kim Barnstable. “I thought we came out and executed our game plan very well in the first period and could have been up by two or three goals. Wall made some key saves, but I was happy with our effort."

"We knew they would come at us hard in the second and we took too many penalties. Butler was the difference in the second and third periods as they really carried the play and kept the puck in our zone. Adam proved again that he is definitely a big-game goal tender.

"Thompson is too good a team to give them that many power play chances. We weren’t able to roll our lines and keep everyone involved. I thought our PK was very good but it took its toll on some players and fatigue became a factor,” said Barnstable.

"Ironically we spent extra time this week on how we wanted to play against their power-play and it paid off for us. “

Next up for the Coyotes is hosting the undefeated University of Victoria next weekend.

“We have another undefeated team coming in next week,” commented Barnstable. "We have to have a good week of practice and improve some areas of our game. UVic is another strong team but we take a lot of pride in playing at home in Memorial Arena. We want to create an identity at home as a very tough place for opponents to win like TRU has in Kamloops.”

Okanagan College will host UVic next Friday and Saturday night at Memorial Arena in Kelowna. Game time each night is 8:45pm.