In a home-and-home series on the weekend, the Selkirk College Saints hockey team threw everything they had at the Thompson Rivers University net, scoring just enough to take a pair of victories and set up an all-important match against Simon Fraser University on Saturday.
The Saints fired 63 shots at the WolfPack net on Friday in a 4-1 win and another 50 shots in a 3-2 shootout win in Kamloops on Saturday.
“It was the second night in a row where we had 50+ shots on goal and didn’t end up with a whole lot to show for it, but it was good to see us battle through that in both games and pick up two important wins,” said Selkirk coach Jeff Dubois.
Trail native Logan Proulx continued his torrid point-scoring streak when he broke in all alone and blew a wrist shot past the glove of TRU goalie Mark Menicucci to tie the game 2-2 on Saturday and force overtime. Proulx has counted at least a point in each of the 21 games this season.
Former Selkirk forward Travis Herlein took advantage of a slow road start from the Saints, scoring twice in a span of 4:51 in the first period to give the WolfPack an early 2-0 lead. But the Saints rebounded before intermission, as Thomas Hardy took a slick pass from former Beaver Valley Nitehawk Mason Spear and beat Menicucci inside the far post to pull the visitors within one.
After Proulx tied it, Menicucci made a number of sensational saves during the third period and overtime to set up the shootout. Selkirk goaltender Chris Hurry matched Menicucci stop-for-stop until the third Selkirk shooter Darnell Dyck beat the TRU netminder on a backhand deke to win the game and give Selkirk a much-needed two points.
“It took us some time to start competing in the defensive zone tonight and we put ourselves in a hole because of that,” says Dubois. “But we have a lot of confidence in our offence to bring us back those types of situations, and I thought we did the things we needed to in order to win in the second and third periods. Menicucci was outstanding in goal for TRU and made some huge saves late in the game.”
On Friday, TRU goalie Silas Mathys kept it a tight 2-1 game, until Beau Taylor scored a power-play goal at 12:55 of the third period to give the Saints some breathing room. The Saints’ Connor McLaughlin would ice it with an empty-netter with 22 seconds remaining.
The victory sets up a huge game on Saturday night when the Saints will host Simon Fraser University. Selkirk currently trails the Clan by two points for first place in the BCIHL standings, but they can overtake their Lower Mainland rivals with three straight wins to close out the regular season. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Castlegar Recreation Complex.