Hunter Johnson skated in the with puck and deked out Princeton goalie Bobby Milligan to score the Coyotes’ third goal Saturday night. (Richard McGuire photo)
The Osoyoos Coyotes shook off the jinx of the previous weekend to register a pair of victories this past weekend.
On Friday night, they won 2-1 in Kelowna in overtime. Then on Saturday, they handily beat the Princeton Posse 4-1. The Posse is in last place in the Okanagan Division of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League.
The two wins still leave the Coyotes four points behind the division leading Summerland Steam, but the Coyotes have three games in hand.
When the Coyotes last played the Kelowna Chiefs, they won both games, but the two teams spent more time fighting than scoring.
On Friday, they got down to playing hockey and there were relatively few penalties.
In the first period, there were no goals, but Kelowna outshot Osoyoos 12-6. Credit goes to Coyotes’ goalie Adam Jones, who was named visiting star of the game.
The Chiefs got their only goal in the first half of the second period.
It remained a 1-0 game until 14 minutes into the third period when Ryan Roseboom scored for the Coyotes, assisted by Judd Repole and Colin Bell.
There was no more scoring and this meant a five-minute overtime period was needed to decide a winner.
The game ended early in overtime as Austin Cleaver scored for Osoyoos, assisted by Mackenzie Wiens, to give the Coyotes the win.
Back at the Sun Bowl on Saturday night, the Coyotes had an easier time, but it wasn’t a cakewalk.
They outshot Princeton 51-32, but the score could have been much worse if not for some good goaltending by the Posse’s Bobby Milligan.
At one point in the second period when the Princeton defence got caught in the wrong place, Repole faced down Milligan, but the goalie charged down the ice towards Repole to knock the puck away until reinforcements could arrive.
Sam Reinbolt opened the scoring for Osoyoos late in the first period, unassisted.
Early in the second period, Daniel Stone scored on a power play, assisted by Roseboom.
With more than half of the period remaining, Hunter Johnson skated right in with the puck and deked out Milligan to score the Coyotes’ third goal. Wiens and Cleaver got the assists.
Late in the period, Princeton scored on a power play to ruin any hopes Liam Aitken had of adding another shutout to his collection.
Finally, with just over eight minutes remaining in the third period, Repole scored an insurance goal on a power play. Bell got the assist.
The Coyotes play a Wednesday night game this week, hosting the North Okanagan Knights at the Sun Bowl. The Knights are in last place in their division, but did beat the Coyotes in Armstrong a couple of weeks ago.
On Friday, they travel to Chase to face the Heat, before returning home for a Saturday night game against the Revelstoke Grizzlies.
Richard McGuire
Osoyoos Times
