Colin Bell scores his second goal of Sunday night’s game against the Kelowna Chiefs and the third Osoyoos goal of the game. Osoyoos won 4-1, putting them back in first place in the Okanagan Division. (Richard McGuire photo)
A pair of weekend victories over the Kelowna Chiefs has vaulted the Osoyoos Coyotes back into first place in the Okanagan Division of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League.
The Coyotes are now tied with the Summerland Steam at 22 points each, but Osoyoos still has two games in hand.
On Saturday night, the Coyotes beat the Chiefs 7-5 in Kelowna. Then, on Sunday night, they landed a resounding 4-1 victory on home ice.
Going into the weekend, Osoyoos trailed Kelowna by a single point in third place.
Saturday’s game saw the Chiefs take a 1-0 lead just 21 seconds into the game. But the Coyotes soon recovered and by the end of the period they led the Chiefs 3-1.
Kaleb Comishin scored the first Coyote goal while Osoyoos was shorthanded. The assists went to Ryan Roseboom and Colin Bell.
Daniel Stone scored on a power play a few minutes later, with Bell getting another assist, along with Carter Shannon.
Then, with less than two minutes remaining in the period, Carter Robinson scored with Judd Repole and Stone getting assists.
In the second period, Osoyoos outshot Kelowna 22-11, but in goal scoring the two teams were matched, picking just one goal each.
Roseboom scored early in the period, with Shannon and Kyle Rosolowski getting assists.
A minute later, Kelowna got their second goal of the night while the Coyotes were a man short.
In the final period, Roseboom got his second goal of the night, unassisted, on a power play.
The Chiefs responded with three goals in four minutes – two of them on power plays – to tie the score at 5-5.
That period was the only one on the entire weekend where Kelowna managed to outshoot Osoyoos, though just by a single shot.
Just before the halfway mark in the period, Jackson Glimpel put the Coyotes back into the lead with Repole and Rosolowski getting the assists.
As the game neared the end with the Coyotes up 6-5, Kelowna took a chance and pulled goalie Tanner Marshall for an extra attacker.
It turned out to be the wrong decision, as Robinson scored his second goal of the night for Osoyoos on the empty net, with just 23 seconds remaining, clinching the 7-5 victory.
It’s fair to say that there were no singsongs of Kumbaya between these two teams. The rap sheet in the first game lists nearly 50 penalties in total, many of them majors.
In one fight early in the second period Saturday, Bell and Shannon of Coyotes and Kolten Carpenter of the Chiefs all landed fighting majors and two game misconducts a piece. Tyson Taylor of Kelowna also landed a string of penalties including a fighting major and a game misconduct in the same incident.
Play had only resumed three seconds when another fight broke out, landing penalties for Austin Cleaver of the Coyotes and Jaden McNulty and Zachary Whitehead, including misconducts.
The antagonism spilled over into Sunday’s game, which was tame by comparison. Nonetheless, Bell and Brett Witala of the Chiefs got into a fight midway through the third period, landing them both fighting majors and a game misconduct.
Despite being thrown out of the game, Bell was successful on the scoring front netting two goals for the Coyotes and one assist, earning billing as the game’s first star.
He opened the scoring on an unassisted goal just past the halfway mark in the first period.
Near the end of the second period, Stone scored for the Coyotes on a power play, with Bell and Repole getting the assists. After two periods of play, the Coyotes were up 2-0.
Bell got his second goal of the night early in the third period with Bryson Cecconi and Roseboom assisting.
That goal wasn’t even announced when the Coyotes scored again, just 13 seconds later, to make it 4-0.
Cleaver got the goal and Brayden Durante and Rosolowski picked up assists.
The bad blood between the two teams spilled to the surface several times in the third period, though Kelowna took the bulk of the penalties.
Several times the Chiefs were two men short, but the Coyotes were unable to capitalize on those power plays.
Only rarely in the third period were the Chiefs able to carry the game into the Osoyoos end, as the Coyotes outshot them 23-9. Nonetheless, with just over five minutes remaining in the period, the Chiefs managed their only goal, ending goalie Adam Jones’ hopes of a shutout.
The Coyotes next travel to Armstrong on Friday to face the North Okanagan Knights.
They then return to the Sun Bowl on Saturday to battle it out for first place with the Summerland Steam.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
