In a month that has the Beaver Valley Nitehawks play seven of its 11 games on the road, the team took advantage of some home cooking on the weekend to sweep a pair of home games.
Friday night, Beaver Valley goaltender Brett Clark stopped all but one of the 37 shots he faced as the Hawks downed the Fernie Ghostriders 4-1. Sunday night, Grayson Sharpe one-upped his teammate by stopping all 26 shots in 4-0 win over the Spokane Braves.
The Braves came into the Beaver Valley Arena playing nothing like their last-place record would indicate.
Spokane, which had only four wins in its first 18 games of the season, blanked the Castlegar Rebels 5-0 on Friday and edged the division-leading Nelson Leafs 4-3 in overtime on Saturday.
After those two big wins, the Braves had little left in their gas tank to take on the rested Nitehawks, who outshot Spokane 49-26.
However, despite the lopsided total, the teams battled through a scoreless first before Beaver Valley delivered a quick one-two punch late in the second.
Dallas Calvin potted his first of two power play goals in the game with six minutes left in the middle frame. Thirty-four seconds later Taylor Stafford doubled Beaver Valley’s lead and the team kept rolling in the third.
Calvin and Jacob Boyczuk scored power play goals three minutes apart early in the period to nail down a 4-0 lead that was never in jeopardy.
In fact the only time Beaver Valley trailed in a game the entire weekend was for about six minutes on Saturday night against the Ghostriders.
Aside from the hometown support that night, the Nitehawks got a lot of help from Clark who kept the Ghostriders at bay with a 36-save performance after giving up the game’s first goal.
Sheldon Hubbard erased Fernie’s 1-0 lead when he tied the game with six minutes to play in the first period.
Beaver Valley went on to score four unanswered goals, with other markers going to Russell Mortlock, Boyczuk and Calvin, while Clark continually foiled Fernie’s efforts.
The Ghostriders outshot Beaver Valley 16-15 in the second period but Mortlock’s goal, which would stand as the game winner, gave the Hawks a one-goal lead heading into the final frame.
Boyczuk wasted little time increasing that cushion notching his second power play goal of the season just 25 seconds into the third period.
As Clark continued to frustrate Fernie with 10 saves in the final 20 minutes, Calvin sealed the win with a power play goal in the final minutes.
The pair of weekend wins for the second-place Nitehawks proved timely. Division-leading Nelson lost all three of its games, albeit two in overtime, and the third-place Castlegar Rebels dropped all three of its games.
Beaver Valley travels to Princeton for its lone game next weekend. The team’s next home game is Nov. 22 against the Columbia Valley Rockies.