The West Kelowna Warriors wrap up a stretch of four games in five nights with a trip south of the border tonight to face-off against the Wenatchee Wild.
Season Series:
Saturday, November 19th @ Royal LePage Place (4-2 Warriors)
Saturday, November 26th @ Town Toyota Center (7:00 PM)
The Warriors enter Saturday night’s action looking to finish their three-game Mainland road swing on a positive note and earn four of a possible six points. After a win against the Surrey Eagles on Thursday night, West Kelowna fell by a 4-2 score in Langley against the Rivermen on Friday night. Jared Marino scored his 4th goal of the season while Quin Foreman added his 16th goal of the year in a losing cause. Shane Farkas made 35 stops on 38 shots in the defeat.
The Warriors and Wild will meet for the 2nd time in a span of seven days when the two drop the puck on Saturday night with the Warriors winning a wild one last week in West Kelowna. Nik Amundrud was outstanding in his Warrior debut, making 45 on 47 shots while Quin Foreman, Blake Coffey, Chase Dubois and Matt Campese scored for the Warriors in the victory. West Kelowna fired just 15 shots on goal and had their penalty kill go 9/9 for the win.
After scoring a season high six times on Thursday, the Warriors could only muster up two goals against affiliate goaltender Bradley Cooper on Friday night in Langley. It also marked the eighth straight game that the Warriors have surrendered the game’s opening goal.
West Kelowna will turn to Nik Amundrud in goal, who picked up his first BCHL victory exactly one week ago in his debut against the Wild at RLP. Amundrud has been fantastic since coming over to the Warriors, posting a 2-1 record to go along with a 2.67 GAA and a .933 SV%. He’s stopped 112 of the 120 shots he’s faced thus far and Wenatchee generates a lot of shots, throwing 45 his way in the opening game between the two teams.
The Warriors depth scoring has come into play over the last few games and a lien that has been providing that has been the trio of Braiden Epp, Cavin Tilsley and Jared Marino. Epp has three points in his last two games (both of those coming off of his six game suspension) while Tilsley collected his first Warrior goal on Thursday night before adding an assist on Friday night in Langley. Marino has a goal and an assist on the Mainland swing and has points in five of his last six games while also amassing points in six of his last eight games.
The Wenatchee Wild enter Saturday night’s affair coming off of a pair of victories during the last week, defeating Chilliwack 5-3 on Wednesday before winning against Vernon on Friday night by a 4-1 score. Charlie Combs scored twice (for a league leading 29 goals) while Troy Conzo and AJ Vanderbeck added singles in the victory. Garrett Nieto stopped 24 of 25 shots for his 6th win of the season.
Not much has changed with the Wild over the course of seven days despite two wins, Brendan Harris continues to lead the league with 38 assists and 49 points while Combs is ahead of the pack in goals with 29. The only thing that shifts from last weekend is the venue, and it’s one that the Wild have thrived in so far this season as the two Bemidji State Beaver commits sit #1 and #2 in BCHL scoring, respectively.
Wenatchee is 12-0-0-0 at Town Toyota Center this season and have made the lives of their visitors miserable with 74 goals for at home compared to just 21 against. That’s a +53 goal differential just on home ice, pretty crazy stats that the Warriors will try and ruin. West Kelowna has done it before as they ended the Wild’s perfect home record last season in their Thanksgiving Day matchup down south.
The puck drops at 7:00 PM at Town Toyota Center with the pre-game show starting at 6:50 PM with the voice of the Warriors Trevor Miller on the Warriors Internet Network and hockeytv.com. The Warriors remain on the road after this trip as they will visit the Vernon Vipers next Friday from Kal Tire Place.
