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Beaver Valley Nitehawks power play propels them to two wins on weekend

The B.V. Nitehawks skated to a 5-2 win over Nelson before rolling over the Spokane Braves 6-1 on the weekend.
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The Beaver Valley Nitehawks swept their two games on the weekend against Neil Murdoch Division rivals the Nelson Leafs and the Spokane Braves to seize top spot in the division.

The Beaver Valley Nitehawks bounced all the way back on the weekend with wins over the Nelson Leafs and Spokane Braves.

After suffering two straight losses to the Leafs in as many weeks, the Nitehawks downed Nelson 5-2 on Friday and continued its dominance over Spokane in a 6-1 victory.

“We’ve playing with basically 15 skaters for the last couple weeks and guys have really played hard and played well so it’s nice to see some results,” said Beaver Valley head coach and GM Terry Jones.

The Nitehawks have been without forwards Kyle Hope, Devin Nemes, Brad Ross and Tyler Ghiradosi due to injury, but Jones expects the forwards to be back in the line up this weekend. Despite the loss in manpower, the Hawks took some major strides receiving scoring throughout the lineup and capitalizing on the power play.

In Friday’s match, the Nitehawks went 3-for-8 with the man advantage, and had five different players score in the 5-2 win over Nelson, including Sam Swanson with a goal and two assists, Tyler Hartman, a goal and an assist, Damon Kramer, Devin Ghiradosi, and Dylan Heppler.

“When we lost those three games in a row, it really made us evaluate ourselves in terms of how we practice, and what we’re focusing on in practice,” said Jones. “We thought our power play was pretty miserable there for a length of time, so we, Bill (Birks) and Jeremy (Cominotto) and myself, we really focused on that and it really made a difference. You see a much better result in the number of power play goals we’re scoring.”

On Saturday, the Nitehawks scored four power-play goals and fired 70 shots at the Spokane net in the 6-1 drubbing. Aiden Browell scored twice, Jaxon Gemmell, Blake Sidoni, Kramer, and McKoy Hauk added singles, while Swanson, Heppler, and Hartman had two-assist nights for the Hawks.

“It’s always a good thing when we see lots of different guys scoring, and guys making contributions everywhere. Good balance with some really nice performances from guys like Aiden Browell for instance.”

With the wins, the 6-3-1-1 Nitehawks soar back into top spot in the Neil Murdoch Division a point up on 5-2-2-1 Grand Forks. The Nitehawks have had a heavy dose of Murdoch Division opponents in the first 11 games, and will play their first match outside their division on Saturday when they face the 3-7-0-0 Golden Rockets from the Eddie Mountain Division.

The Nitehawks host the Rockets at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Beaver Valley Arena.



Jim Bailey

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