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Rockies cool Heat and rake Leafs to keep rolling
By Stephanie Stevens
The Heat were lukewarm and the Leafs were left blowing in the wind.
The Columbia Valley Rockies tallied another four points last weekend with back-to-back wins in the Eddie Mountain Memorial Arena, but associate coach Tucker Braund said they do not plan to rest on their laurels.
“A 4-0 start is great, we want to stack as many points as we can at any time in the season, but we just can’t get complacent,” said Braund. “We need to come to the rink every day with a mentality that we can get better as a group and as individuals. All of us, coaches included.”
The Sept. 27 tilt with the Chase Heat was a tilt indeed; a high penalty game that was itself a lesson for the team so early in the season.
“We are learning what the line is with the officiating and sometimes we get ourselves over that line,” said Braund. “We just need to find a balance with it. Saturday was better, we are learning to keep our emotions in check even when sometimes there are calls we don’t agree with.”
Opening up scoring in the first at the Friday game was Wyatt Wurtz (assists from Peter Godley and Owen Ditzal), followed by Ethan Cerone (Wurtz and Jack Hefferan), Carter Hensch (Carter Velker and Ditzal). Second period goals were courtesy of Teo Fath (Jaxson Sperling and Caden Williams), Godley (Bryan Kim and Hefferan) and Johnny Lozeman (Sperling and Williams). Kim (Godley and Ditzal) potted a power play goal in the third.
Rookie goalie Ryan Bain stopped 34 of 37 shot on net.
Saturday’s game against the Nelson Leafs saw an excellent opportunity to put the Rockies specialty plays into action.
“Our penalty kill did an excellent job killing all of their powerplay opportunities Saturday,” said head coach Tayler Sincennes. “We were undisciplined in the second and got some unfortunate penalties in the third to put us down five on three in a close game at the time. Our penalty kill went out and sacrificed themselves and got the job done.”
Trae Lees started off the first period tally (assists from Ashton Sledz and Sam Cristo), followed by Sperling (Velker and Cerone), Sledz (Lukas Masters and Cristo) and Fath (Carter Tuplin and Carter Krause). Third period play saw goals from Cerone (Velker and Shawn Minnabarriet) and Ditzal (Kim and Godley).
Jaiden Jakubowski was between the pipes and stopped 37 of 39 shots on goal.
The next two games are away in Castlegar on Oct. 4 and Nelson Oct. 5, with the boys back in the Eddie on Saturday, Oct. 12 facing off with the Castlegar Rebels.
“We are always working to help our team get better no matter what our record is,” said Braund.
“We have won our first four games but I think we have a lot to work on. I doubt any of the coaches would say we played all four with perfect full 60 minutes, there’s always something to improve.”
Stephanie Stevens photos
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