The West Kelowna Warriors ended their seven-game winless stretch with a 3-2 victory in Duncan on Saturday night against the Cowichan Valley Capitals.
The Warriors and Caps played to a scoreless opening period but West Kelowna had all the pressure with 14 shots toward Cowichan Valley netminder Adam Marcoux while the Caps could only throw 5 shot towards Warriors goalie Trevor Martin.
West Kelowna cracked the score sheet first at the 9:17 mark of the 2nd period and came courtesy of a power play. Quin Foreman made a terrific backdoor pass to find a streaking Reed Gunville for his 8th goal of the season, beating Marcoux to the blocker side and giving the visitors a 1-0 advantage.
The Warriors lead moved to two goals just 19 seconds later at the 9:36 mark as Chase Dubois found the back of the net for the second consecutive night. Dubois sped down the left wing and beat a Capital defender through his legs and fired a shot up high for a beauty and his 3rd goal of the season and the Warriors took a 2-0 lead.
The Warriors pounced for another goal at the 12:15 mark of the middle stanza as Braiden Epp found the back of the net on the power play. Quin Foreman’s left point shot was redirected in by Epp for his 5th goal of the season and gave the Warriors a 3-0 lead with three goals in a span of 2:02.
Cowichan Valley got on the score board at the 14:16 mark of the second frame as Rhett Kingston got by the Warriors defense and made a nice move past Martin to cut the Warrior lead to 3-1.
The Capitals made things interesting late with a goal in the final minute at the 19:14 mark with Ayden MacDonald firing in a rebound of a face-off win for the Caps to make it a one-goal game but it was too little, too late as the Warriors skated away with their first victory since October 4th against Chilliwack with a 3-2 win over the Capitals.
Trevor Martin was outstanding for a second consecutive night, turning aside 35 of the 37 shots he faced for his first win as a Warrior while Adam Marcoux made 32 saves on 35 shots in the losing cause.
The Warriors (6-9-0-1) close out their three-game Island road trip with a trip to Port Alberni to face-off against the Alberni Valley Bulldogs (4-10-0-2). Puck drop is slated for 2:00 PM with the pre-game show starting at 1:50 PM on the Warriors Internet Network and hockeytv.com.
