The Beaver Valley Nitehawks emerged with three of four points in a two-game home stand on the weekend.
The Hawks fell to the Golden Rockets, 4-3, in overtime on Friday night, but bounced back to scratch out a 2-1 victory over the Creston Valley Thunder Cats on Saturday.
The Nitehawks dominated the Cats outshooting them 37-16 over the first two periods, but held a slim 2-0 lead.
A great passing play by Spencer McLean and Ross Armour scored what proved to be the winner at 12:38 of the second period. McLean took a pass from Mitch Foyle and skated down the left side on a 2-on-1, slid a pass to Armour who then feathered it back to McLean who lifted into the open side past Cats goalie Brock Lefebvre.
The Nitehawks had ample opportunity to increase the lead, and had a goal waved off when the goalie knocked the net from its moorings, but also missed several close-in chances.
“From a player’s perspective, when you are playing quite well, but not bearing down around the net, you can kind of get a false sense of security,” said Nitehawks assistant coach Kevin Limbert. “We controlled the play very well in the first period but we weren’t capitalizing on our chances. I think we could have been up quite a few more, and that’s always a scary place to be because you get comfortable, and the game is close even though it doesn’t feel close.”
The Thunder Cats would score with 12:18 to play in the third period, to cut the lead to one, but Drake Poirier stood tall the rest of the way for the Nitehawks stopping 10 of 11 shots in the final frame to record the win.
Andrew Miller opened the scoring for the Nitehawks when he one-timed a pass from Tyler Hartman, wiring it top corner, completely exploding the water bottle in the process. The Trail native has been a force on the back end for the Hawks scoring his fourth goal on the season for 11 points. The Hawks outshot Creston 45-27, and went 1-for-4 on the power play. Creston was 0-for-4.
The Hawks deserved better against the Rockets on Friday night, squandering a pair of two-goal leads in the loss, while outshooting Golden 43-35.
“I thought our play was a little inconsistent,” said Nitehawks coach Kevin Limbert. “In the first period, we were skating well and doing all the things we talked about, and then we kind of lost focus and lost sight of our success in the first period and didn’t come out ready in the second and third.”
The Nitehawks jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals from Jace Weeger and Tyler Stafford before Golden could reply.
Nic Noseworthy scored an unassisted goal at 16:08 to cut the lead to one, but Armour would net a power-play goal, his fourth of the season, on a nice set up from Stafford to restore the two goal lead.
However, Golden would again make it a one-goal game with five minutes remaining in the second on a goal from Travis Kelley. Then midway through the final frame, Daniel Dahlin would tie it and the Hawks would kill a penalty in the final two minutes of the game to earn a point and send it to OT.
The Hawks had a few chances but with 2:47 left in the first overtime, Zack Finley beat goalie Carson Schamerhorn to net the Rockets two points.
“It’s always tough, you feel comfortable when you’re only up one or two. If you had been bearing down on your scoring chances and capitalizing then that wouldn’t have been an issue. But the bottom line is we just didn’t work hard enough in the last two periods.”
The Nitehawks host the Castlegar Rebels in their next game Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Beaver Valley Arena.