The Beaver Valley Nitehawks hit a couple bumps in the road on the weekend with a pair of setbacks to the Golden Rockets and Columbia Valley Rockies.
The Nitehawks fell 4-3 to the Rockets in Golden on Friday, then succumbed to the Eddie Mountain Division leading Rockies 7-4 in Invermere on Saturday.
With the losses, the 8-5-0-0 Nitehawks surrendered precious ground to the Neil Murdoch Division leading 11-2-0-0 Nelson Leafs that skated to three victories over Creston, 3-1, Osoyoos, 5-2, and Spokane, 6-0, on the weekend.
In Saturday’s match against Columbia Valley, Beaver Valley dominated the first period outshooting the Rockies 16-9, but found themselves trailing 4-0 after the first 20 minutes.
Ryan Skytt, Gavin Fleck, and Chase Hawkins scored in the first 11 minutes and 26 seconds of the match to chase Hawks goalie Jacob Romanowski from the crease, and Rockies forward Jesse Carr tallied his eighth of the season beating call up Kevin Engman to give C.V. a commanding 4-0 lead.
Engman, a Trail native and affiliate player, made the road trip in place of starting goalie Noah Decottignies, who is out of the line up with injury.
Beaver Valley’s Angus Amadio notched his 11th goal and 17th point on the season at 18:37 of the middle frame with assists to Nolan Corrado and Simon Nemethy to make it 4-1 heading into the third. Engman stopped 16 shots in the period to give B.V. a chance to comeback.
However, it was Columbia’s Fleck scoring his second of the game at 16:36 to put the Rockies up 5-1, before Ryan Crisalli responded on a setup from Bradley Ross and Paul Leroux at 16:10 in the third to cut the lead to 5-2.
The Rockies kept coming and Dace Prymak scored on a power play at 11:09 to restore the four-goal lead, but the Nitehawks made it interesting. Crisalli tallied his second of the game and sixth of the campaign on an unassisted effort with 8:30 to play, and Luke Recchi made it 6-4 finishing off a pretty play from Michael Hagen and Leroux with just under two minutes remaining.
Fleck, however, completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal with 1:35 left in regulation for C.V.’s ninth win of the season. Columbia Valley is tied for first place in the Eddie Mountain Division with a 9-2-0-0 record, and a game in hand on Kimberley at 9-3-0-0.
B.V. outshot Columbia Valley 22-12 in the final frame and 49-37 in the match, with Engman stopping 28 of 31 shots. The Nitehawks went 0-for-7 on the power play, while the Rockies were 1-for-2.
On Friday, the Nitehawks squandered a 3-2 third-period lead, as Golden came back to win their sixth game of the season in the 4-3 victory.
Thomas Johnson’s first goal of the year with just over six minutes to play in the third period proved to be the game-winner for the Rockets.
Beaver Valley opened the scoring at 14:12 on a Simon Nemethy snipe, but Brendan Sime-Vivian tied it with 1:47 to play in the opening frame. Twenty-one seconds later, Ross netted his seventh goal on a Hagen assist to send it into the second with a 2-1 Nitehawks lead.
The Rockets tied it on a Colton Hutchinson power-play goal at 11:38, but Hagen restored the Hawks lead on the power play with his first tally of the season, on assists to Brock Wallace and Jake Yuris.
However, the Rockets completed the comeback in the third with Jack Fairfield tying it 3-3 at 17:03, to set up Johnson’s winner.
Golden outshot Beaver Valley 32-25, going 1-for-5 on the power play, while B.V. was 1-for-2. Romanowski was solid in net in the loss and earned the Game Star nod for the Hawks, while Sime-Vivian earned the honour for Golden.
B.V. plays in Nelson on Friday, before returning to the Hawks Nest for a Saturday night tilt against the Summerland Steam at 7:30 p.m. B.V. also hosts the Golden Rockets at 1 p.m on Sunday.