KELOWNA 8
VICTORIA 4
Staring at a 15-year-old goaltender making his first Western Hockey League start, one would think the Victoria Royals would have come out with a sense of urgency early as Cole Tisdale of Lethbridge took to the net for the Kelowna Rockets.
Instead, the Rockets scored three times in the first nine minutes of the game to stake themselves to a lopsided 8-4 victory over the visiting Royals at Prospera Place in what was dubbed as the battle for first place in the B.C. Division.
Trailing the Rockets by a single point in the standings coming in (although having played two more games), the Royals couldn’t muster up enough offence early while playing their third game in four nights, and had their four-game win streak snapped.
Victoria ventured in from Vancouver, where they had earned a 4-3 overtime-shootout win the previous night, but the Rockets were travelling back from Seattle where they were thumped 7-2 by the Thunderbirds on Friday.
Tisdale entered that game as a backup netminder for Kelowna and stopped 15 of 17 shots in 26 minutes of relief work as the organization battles injuries at the key position. On Saturday, he faced just 26 shots against Victoria.
Second-round Vancouver Canucks draft pick Kole Lind and gold medallists for Team Canada at the World Junior championship Cal Foote and Dillon Dube all scored in the first 8:20 of the first period before Tyler Soy got one back for Victoria on a power play at 16:32 to give the Royals some life.
That life was sucked out of them briefly by Salt Spring Island’s Kyle Topping, who took just 31 seconds of the second period to restore the three-goal advantage for the Rockets.
Matthew Phillips and Dante Hannoun scored two more Victoria power-play goals to cut it to 4-3.
But Leif Mattson scored short-handed late in the second period and Jack Cowell and Carson Twarynski added goals in the first minute of the third for Kelowna.
Cowell added his second of the night into an empty net before Igor Martynov scored on a penalty shot for the Royals.
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
Twitter/tc_vicsports
