Sports

Story provided by Fraser Rodgers

The Penticton Vees almost squandered a five goal lead before hanging on to beat the Westside Westside 7-5 on Saturday night. 

The Vees had a 6-1 lead after forty minutes before a nervous final period.

Penticton got off to a strong start, building up a two goal lead in the first 15 minutes against the Warriors.

Joey Benik opened the scoring by converting on a Zach Urban rebound one minute and forty-two seconds into the game. Benik would show up on the score sheet two more times.

Cody DePourcq built on Benik’s opener, again off a rebound in front of Dwayne Rodrigue for his third goal in
four periods. His sixth coming just before the fifteen minute mark.

Ryan Reilly scored for the second straight night, early in the second period, collecting a Logan Johnston rebound and sliding it into an open net. His 29th coming two minutes and thirty-seven seconds in the middle stanza.

The celebration was muted three minutes later when Max French put the Warriors on the board with a short-handed tally just past the 5 minute mark, the first short-handed goal surrendered by the Vees this season.

Penticton replied quickly thereafter, scoring a short-handed marker, when Benik finished a give-and-go with Steve Fogarty seconds shy of the 12 minute mark. Fogarty intercepted the puck at the blue-line and went in on a two-on-oh with Benik, who had an open side after a cross-crease pass.

The Vees blew things open, or so they thought, when Wade Murphy and Fogarty scored 1:52 apart late in the
period, giving the home side a five goal lead after forty minutes.

In the third period, the Warriors outscored the Vees 4-1 and created some nervous and tense moments at the SOEC.

Shawn Hochhausen scored just shy of the five minute mark putting some life back into the Warriors.  

Just 16 seconds later, Marcus Basara tapped in a back-door pass to cut the deficit in half.

Connor Dempsey and Max French’s second cut the lead to just one goal for Penticton and threatened the winning streak.

However, Benik put the game away with an empty-net goal, his third of the game, with 23 seconds left, preserving the Vees 32nd straight win.

The win pushes the Vees consecutive wins record to 32 in a row, a new career best for Head Coach Fred Harbinson.

He fashioned together a 31 game winning streak with the Fernie Ghostriders when they played in the American West Hockey League.

The Vees don’t play again until next Friday, February 17 when they host the Vernon Vipers. It's the final game between the two teams in the regular season.