PHOTO: Wayne Moore/Castanet
The West Kelowna Warriors held the lead for the majority of the night but finished in a 2-2 tie with the Penticton Vees on Wednesday night in West Kelowna.
The Warriors and Vees played to a scoreless first frame where the chances were at a premium while West Kelowna outshot the Vees 8-2 in the opening 20 minutes.
The second period brought more excitement to the game and some goals as well as the Warriors took a 1-0 lead just 3:01 into the middle stanza. Connor Sodergren rushed the puck down the left wing and fired a solid wrister on goal for a big rebound to pop out to Jon Russell, who buried past Vees netminder Nolan Hildebrand for the game’s first marker.
West Kelowna took a 2-0 lead at the 10:24 mark of the period as Quin Foreman took advantage of a Vees miscue. Hildebrand went behind the goal to play the puck and had it skip away from him to a rushing Foreman and he made no mistake, wrapping the puck around on the glove side for the two-goal advantage.
West-K took that lead into the third before the Vees, more specifically Grant Cruikshank, chipped away. The first year Vee made a dazzling play to get around a Warrior defender and capped off a highlight reel goal with sliding the puck past Warrior goaltender Gunnar Neilsen to make the game 2-1 at the 2:10 mark of the final period.
The Vees tied the game in the late stages of the final frame, at the 18:07 mark to be exact, as a 5-on-3 power play was capitalized on by Cruikshank, burying a one time feed from Ty Amonte to tie the score and eventually finish the game at 2-2.
West Kelowna outshot Penticton 20-14 over the course of sixty minutes and went 6/7 on the penalty kill en route to the tie. Shane Farkas started the game for the Warriors, going 5/5 in his 30-plus minutes of action before Neilsen took over just after the Warriors second goal of the game.
The Warriors are back in action on Friday night at Royal LePage Place when they play host to the Merritt Centennials in their fifth pre season game before wrapping up the pre season on the road on Saturday night in Merritt against the Cents.
