It was a weekend sweep of redemption for all three Cariboo teams.
The Quesnel River Rush, 100 Mile House Wranglers, and Williams Lake Mustangs all secured back-to-back wins in their respective games, coming out of last weekend’s losses. Each team had multiple scorers in at least one of their games through the weekend.
Both the River Rush and the Wranglers pushed their Friday games into overtime, then returned with dominant performances on Saturday. Williams Lake carried the momentum on their high-scoring victory from Friday through to Saturday, with two blow out wins.
Here are the breakdowns of the games.
Quesnel: Another tally on the Streak
The Rush continued their impressive run of games with a tight 3 – 2 overtime win against the Castlegar Rebels. Cash Anderson for Quesnel opened the scoring in the second period, off an assist from Gage Parrell. This was the Armstrong-born forward’s fifth goal of the season.
Quesnel-born, Isaiah Bagri added two more goals to his total. One scored in the third period with assists from Casey Woods and Cash Anderson. A nice feed from Bennet Kuhnlein set up Bagri’s game-winning goal in OT.
Saturday showed a game of dominance for The Rush. Winning 5 – 0 against the Kelowna Chiefs.
Quesnel started the scoring early with two in the first from Ian George and Josh Greenough. In the second period, Bagri picked up his twelfth goal of the season, and an assist on Max Kinnee’s goal, and Tristen Mero would score the final goal of the contest and his second of the season.
Five Misconduct penalties were given to players on both Quesnel and Kelowna. Three came at 17:04 into the third period to two River Rush and one Chief. Fighting penalities were given to Owen Ivanov for Kelowna, and Dane Dietz for Quesnel. Kelowna’s Murphy Jensen received a slashing penalty, and Kuhnlein for Quesnel got a roughing penalty. All of which were added to the incident at 17:04.
The three game streak now puts Quesnel’s record to 6 wins, 9 losses (6-9), and fourth in the division behind the Chase Heat (6-5-2).
100 Mile: Still On Top
The Wranglers reinforced their lead in the Cariboo Cup with their two convincing wins. Friday’s 4 -3 contentious win over the Kamloops Storm was also decided in Overtime. The Wrangler’s Matthew Balderston scored the game opener in the first. Everett Boutcher brought the Wranglers to a 2 – 0 lead going into the second period.
The Storm’s Ryan Larsen scored two to tie in the second. The Wrangler’s Dawson Harder and The Storm’s Kade Lawlor both tallied their first goals of the season in the third to send the game into OT. 100 Mile’s Jaden Rusznak would score the game winner.
On Saturday, the Wranglers blew out the Sicamous Eagles 9 – 4. The Wranglers had seven different goal scorers across the three periods.
Rusznak opened the scoring at 7:49 in the first period, and would pick up his second of the game in the third. Ethan Davey was the Wranglers second multiple goal scorer on Saturday.
The Wranglers’s moves up to 9-7-0-1, and stay on top of the division.
Williams Lake: Fighting Strong
Asher Lucas lit up the scoring for the Mustangs on Friday night. Picking up his first hat-trick in the 9 – 5 win against the Kelowna Chiefs.
Declan Pocock scored twice in the first. One off a pass from Lucas. JP Desabrais, Dawson Ernst, and Logan Hauk were the Mustangs other goal scorers. Kaelen Swanson broke throuhg 10 assists in the game, racking up his eleventh on the Hauk goal.
On Saturday, The Mustangs let in two in their 5 – 2 victory against the Castlegar Rebels. Power plays ended up being the downfall for the Rebels, letting in three goals on six short-handed.
It was a slower start than normal for the Mustangs, no goals were scored in the first period. Matthew Keylor scored the first goal at 5:13 into the second period. Swanson scored his sixth of the season just under a minute and a half later. Both goals off power plays.
Castlegar’s Evan Calder and Reid Gerrand would tie the game going into the third. Where another Keylor power play goal brought up his tally to two for the night. Asher Lucas picked up another goal to make 12 in the season, and Dawson Ernst would score the final goal.
Williams Lake moves up to a 4-8-0-2, last in the division behind Quesnel.
Looking Ahead:
The Cariboo Trio remain home next week. The River Rush will host the Spokane Braves (1-10-0-2) at the West Fraser Centre on Friday, November 8.
Saturday, November 9, the 100 Mile House will test their strength against the first place Princeton Posse (14-1-0-1) in the South Cariboo Rec Centre. Then Williams Lake will take their turn hosting the Spokane Braves, in the Cariboo Memorial Rec Complex.
The Puck drops at 7 o’clock p.m in all three of the games.
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