The Osoyoos Coyotes suffered an overtime loss against the Spokane Braves on Oct. 19. (Vanessa Broadbent file photo)

By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

The Osoyoos Coyotes are keeping their chin up after a tough overtime loss at home to the Spokane Braves on Oct. 19.

“We’re a competitive team this year, obviously, the results don’t show what we should be in the standings, but the room is very positive right now. The guys are very motivated to win,” said head coach Dean Maynard. “We’re just not getting the bounces, we’re not getting the goals.”

Coyotes forward Blake Astorino put two away late in the third period to send the game to overtime, but it wasn’t enough to clinch the win as Spokane’s Matthew Klenk put the game winner behind Osoyoos net minder Logan Jorginson.

Jorginson was filling in for newly acquired Curt Doyle, who was feeling ill and unable to play in top form Saturday night, Maynard said.

There are only two ways to face adversity, Maynard told his 0-11-1 team, quitting or battling through.

“The biggest thing is people can make excuses for everything. You know, the refs or this and that, at the end of the day. We keep working harder and harder every day. We’re going to have positive results. We can’t be negative or making excuses,” Maynard said.

The shot stats for the Coyotes are on the upswing, but not according to KIJHL shot counts. Maynard said he has recruited a few independent shot counters at recent games to make sure they are getting accurate game statistics to inform his coaching.

“We definitely outshot Kelowna and we outshot Spokane by a lot. For Spokane (the game stats) said it was 38 shots for Spokane. I have two guys, one guy in the stands, one guy on the bench taking shot counts, and the shot count was actually 58-25 for us,” Maynard said. “I’m not sure how the shot count is going in our own arena, but I think it’s a little disputed or not counted properly.”

He is looking into more independent shot counts for the team, with those stats crucial to game planning and training.

“Those are frustrating things because every week we work on little things like progression of shots,” Maynard said.

Coyotes will be working on driving the net and getting aggressive on those crucial offensive opportunities this week as they head on a two-game road trip to the visit the North Okanagan Knights at Armstrong Nor-Val Centre on Oct. 25 and then take on the Sicamous Eagles on Oct. 26.