Warriors take 'Wild' affair

Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet

The West Kelowna Warriors scored twice in a span of 19 seconds early in the third period en route to a well-deserved 4-2 win over the visiting Wenatchee Wild Saturday at Royal LePage Place.

It was the first loss of the season for the Wild, who came into Saturday's game with a 5-0-1-0 record.

Kyler Hope, the game's first star, knotted the game at 2-2 when he came off the side wall, cut the the left circle and fired a shot that beat Garrett Nieto short side.

While that goal was being announced, Jonathan Desbiens and Garrett Forster broke in two-on-one.

Debsiens fed a perfect centering pass to Forster, who tapped home his third of the season to give the Warriors a 3-2 lead.

Liam Blackburn closed out the scoring with his fourth when he broke in all alone shorthanded and beat Nieto five-hole.

Kyle Marino scored the other goal as he opened the scoring in the final minute of the opening frame.

Hope and Marino each had an assist to go along with their goals.

The win came just three days after the Warriors suffered their worst defeat in franchise history, a 9-1 setback in Merritt.

"We want to put that one as far behind us as possible," said Hope of the game in Merritt.

"Obviously, this is a team that hadn't lost a game, and we knew we had to play a hard game to beat them, and I think we did that."

Down a goal in the second, Wenatchee took advantage of six Warriors penalties in the second period to score twice on the power-play and grab a 2-1 lead.

It was a period that had both the Warriors bench – and their fans – a little testy.

At one point, the Warriors took a bench minor after Hope appeared to be clipped around the mouth with a stick without a penalty being called.

In all, the Warriors were shorthanded 11 times during the contest, but were able to kill off nine of those and net a shorthanded tally.

The Warriors had just four chances on the power-play, three of those coming in the final period.

"I thought both teams played hard and didn't give up a lot but, we were shorthanded most of the night, which was unfortunate," said Warriors head coach Rylan Ferster.

"I feel sorry for the fans who came here and had to see us shorthanded like that. I don't think they got to see the best of two teams being able to go at it."

The Warriors were far and away the better team five-on-five and completely shut down the Wild in the third period, allowing just one shot, a high, desperation slapper with 0.6 seconds remaining on the clock. Even that shot appeared to be heading over the net.

The Warriors defence did a superb job, especially during the third of getting in front of getting bodies in front of pucks and sticks into passing lanes.

Newly signed netminder Stephen Heslop turned aside 16 shots to record his first win of the season.

Heslop, 20, was signed out of Princeton in the KIJHL after the club traded away 20-year-old Danial Mannella.

The Warriors have now won three of their last four and move into third spot in the Interior Division, two points in back of Salmon Arm.

They'll look to make it two for two in October when they entertain the Coquitlam Express Tuesday night.