The Salmon Arm Fix Auto Atom Saints played a pair of games on the weekend, Saturday at home versus North Okanagan #2 and on the road Sunday versus Winfield.
North Oak played a strong first period and saw the visitors up 4-2 at the intermission. The Saints came out fired up in the second and evened up the scoring for a 6-6 tie going into the third. They continued their strong team play in the final period, scoring five more goals to take the game 11-7.
Scoring for the Saints were Dominic Barbosa, Matt Campbell, Braden Hessler and Brendan Mayes. Shots were 35-30 for the home team, including a 16-shot effort in the third period.
Even being down a few players on Sunday couldn’t stop the boys from taking a 2-0 lead into the first intermission, thanks in part to a very strong defensive effort. Winfield scored twice in the second, but the Saints answered back with one of their own to take a 3-2 lead into the third. The Saints scored early in the third, but a desperate Winfield team couldn’t be held back, and scored twice in the last five minutes for a 4-4 final.
Goals for the Saints came from Matt Campbell, Dominic Barbosa and Zander Stewart. Evan Smith had yet another strong game in goal for the silver and black, stopping 24 of 28 shots.
The Saint’s hit the road for a tournament in Revelstoke this weekend.
MVPs galore
The Salmon Arm Bantam Tier 2 Silvertips were in action this weekend at a tournament in Williams Lake. The Silvertips opened the tourney with a 7-2 victory over Fort St. John. Defenceman Austin Pugh scored a goal and had two assists while being named game MVP.
On Saturday, the ’Tips lost to Quesnel 5-0 in a penalty filled affair, but received a strong performance from centre Zach Fournier who was named MVP for that game.
In their second game of the day, Logan Mostat led the team with a couple of goals and Salmon Arm dominated play, but the Silvertips could not get enough pucks past a hot Williams Lake goaltender and fell 4-3 in a heartbreaker.
On Sunday, forward Doug Harrison exploded for four goals and MVP honours as Salmon Arm blasted Prince George 10-1 to finish the tournament. The team now returns to league play with a couple of games against Rossland-Trail next weekend. Their home tournament is on Nov. 18 -20.
Improving
Progress was shown this weekend by the Pee Wee Tier 3 Silvertips when they travelled to Kamloops to play on Saturday. It is evident that six days a week of hockey is starting to pay off. The passing, break outs, and defensive plays were all improved in this weekend’s showing.
It may have been a loss but it was the best loss all season and the only way is up for these hard young workers. Sponsor A & W is proud to see this group of athletes play with so much drive and passion.
Final score was 4-1 in favour of Kamloops.The single tally for the Tips was scored by Trent Thompson and some strong defensive effort was shown by the weekly hard hat recipient, Steven Luchkanych. Good things take good time.