Tigers Stay Alive:

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

Tigers stay alive

It was a nail biter, but the Vernon Tigers prevailed with a thrilling 5-4 overtime win against the Kamloops Venom in Game 3 Saturday night at Wesbild Centre to keep their Thompson Okanagan Junior Lacrosse League final hopes alive.
Playing in his first game of the playoffs, Tigers’ veteran Darren Kirby collected the winner with 5:07 remaining in double-overtime on a spectacular pass from Jordan Jarvis. Jarvis faked a shot on Venom netminder Stu Ford then fed a great pass to Kirby who slammed it in the net.
Game 4 of the best-of-five series went Tuesday night at Kamloops Memorial Arena.
A fifth game, if required, goes tonight at Wesbild Centre (7:30).
“That was such an intense game,” said Kirby, who can only play parttime with the Tigers, as he attends school in Vancouver. “Having not played in like three weeks, I felt fine out there.
“Everyone felt nervous in the beginning of the game, but the nerves wore out by the second period.
“This has definitely been a series of defensive plays and as the saying goes, defence wins championships, so our guys on the back end are going to have to keep up what they did tonight and keep the Venom shooters away.”
Despite the Tigers winning the overall game, the Venom scored the first goal of every period. Ryland DeRose, Tyler Reid, Ryan Hildebrand, and Zach Bruneau handled the Venom attack.
Riley Soleway, Brennan Plante, and Miles Jespersen, with a pair, rounded out the Tigers’ offence.
Jespersen’s first came after the Venom had put a ton of pressure on the Tigers’ defence, but netminder Josh Phillips was a rock. Vernon finally got possession after Jarvis made a big hit on a Venom player and then sprung Jespersen for the goal.
Even though the Tigers scored only five goals, they threw 77 shots Ford’s way. Ford led the league’s goaltenders with a .871 save percentage.
Phillips stopped 36 Venom shots.
Said Tigers’ coach Brian Klein: “The game turned out the way I thought. All the games in this series have been really close with lots of defence.
“Both goalies on both teams played extremely well. Our defence was really outstanding and it’s been a big accomplishment to us to keep Riley Donahue, one of the league’s top scorers, scoreless.
“Also, this was Darren’s first game of the playoffs so it was really nice to see him get the winner. He played a great game.”