Vipers Bow In Overtime To Powell River:

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Vipers bow in overtime to Powell River

by Don Klepp | Added 2010-02-04

After a long day of travel, the Vernon Vipers started well in Powell River, but were unable to sustain their early effort and bowed to the Kings in overtime by a 3-2 score.

Matt Garbowsky scored the winner just 54 seconds into overtime when he was fed in the low slot from behind the net by Chad Niddery, who had outworked the Viper defence.

The odyssey started early Thursday with a bus ride from Vernon to Vancouver, a long wait at the Vancouver airport, and a charter plane trip that landed the Vipers in Powell River just in time for the game. The expensive trip was necessitated by having to make up the November 18 game that was cancelled by a power failure on the Sunshine Coast.

Despite the travel woes, the Vipers had plenty of jump early, and they translated that energy into a goal at 4:48. On the power play, Cory Kane lost a puck on a high speed rush, but he recovered the puck in the corner and passed to Adam Thompson, who came in from the point. Goalie Josh Watson got a piece of Thompson’s slap shot, but the Kings’ netminder didn’t get enough.

The Kings were unable to score on their first period man advantage, but they gained some momentum and they equalized at 15:12 when Andrew Pettit’s slapper went off Blake Voth’s shoulder and trickled into the net.

Voth and Watson were equally sharp in the second period as Watson stopped all 16 Viper shots and Voth blocked the Kings’ 13 shots. In the middle frame, the Vipers had more puck possession, but the Kings looked dangerous on the counter attack.

The punch and counter punch scenario continued in the third period, with each team scoring once. Mat Bodie, whose strong play earned him the game’s first star, notched a short handed goal following Ben Schmidt’s determined effort in the Viper zone. Schmidt tracked a Mitch Labreche dump in and found Bodie in the slot.

Rob Short got that back at 15:59 and although the Vipers continued to press, they were unable to beat Josh Watson. And so the teams headed to overtime. The Kings seemed to benefit from the short break because they reversed the Vipers’ momentum from the end of the third period.

Game Notes:

• The Vipers went 1 for 4 on the power play, while the Kings failed to score on their two man advantage opportunities.

• Blake Voth, who was named third star of the game, saw his goals against average slide up to 1.59 and his save percentage dip to 93.56 percent as he bids to set BCHL records in both categories.

• The Kings stayed three points ahead of the Victoria Grizzlies for the second place spot in the Coastal standings as the Grizzlies also won in overtime, Thursday in Quesnel.

• With the one point gained from the overtime loss, the Vipers are now two points ahead of Penticton for the BCHL lead. Each team has eight games remaining.

• Because of restrictions imposed by Olympic fly-zone security, the Vipers will have to fly out of Powell River very early Friday morning and then take 10 hours for the 3-hour bus ride from Vancouver to Merritt for that evening’s game.