Vipers Finally Solve Rodrigue:

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Vipers Finally Solve Rodrigue

Friday, January 27, 2012 - Submitted by Don Klepp

Colton Cyr and Mike Zalewski each scored twice as the Vipers defeated the Westside Warriors 4-1 in Vernon on Friday.

Carrying on from last Saturday when the Vipers bombarded the Warriors with 24 third-period shots but were unable to score, Vernon outshot Westside 12-2 in the first period but could not solve Dwayne Rodrigue’s goaltending. His best saves were point blank on Colton Cyr and a quick glove on a Ryan Renz blast.

Responding to Rylan Ferster’s urging, the Warriors came out strong in the second period, hemming in the home team and leading in shots 7-1 for the first seven minutes. But then a Viper line rush resulted in a Mike Zalewski snipe at 7:16 and the Vipers took over from that point on.

Stifling defence and frequent shot blocking by the Viper defencemen made life relatively easy for Kirby Halcrow, who stopped 20 of 21 shots. Still, he was very good on a couple of golden Warrior chances early in the second period.

Halcrow’s bid for his first shutout of the season was lost at 13:01 of the third period, during a Warrior two-man advantage. He stopped Ben Betker’s point shot and three attempts by Seb Lloyd at the doorstep, but Lloyd banged in his fourth attempt.

By then, however, the game was on ice because of two Colton Cyr goals earlier in the period. His first, at 2:57, came when he knocked down a Ryan Renz point shot with the shaft of his stick and wheeled to put a backhand past Rodrigue.

The second came at 5:17. Again he got the shaft of his stick on a shot, a one-timed hard slap shot by Patrick McGillis. It was Cyr’s third goal in his sixth game as a Viper.

Mike Zalewski capped the scoring late in the game when he stole the puck from Ben Betker at the Westside blue line and went in to beat Rodrigue with a low shot to the stick side.

Ryan Renz was named the first star for his two assists, his shot blocking, and his solid physical play. He believes that the Vipers played “one of [their] better games of the year. Westside can be hard to play against if you let them get a forecheck going in your end, but they had only that one good spell at the beginning of the second, and we shut them down after that.”

Ben Gamache’s return to the lineup seemed to give the Vipers a lift. Darren Nowick, another Viper who’s been out with a long-term injury, said “When you see a guy like Ben giving it everything he has when he’s not 100 percent physically, that makes the other guys work that much harder.”

Vipe Snipes:

Playing without the suspended Matt Berry, the Warriors moved Dru Morrison back to defence, where he had a solid game.
The Vipers dressed 17-year-old Matti Jmaeff, an affiliated player from the Nelson Leafs and 15-year-old Logan Mick, who plays for the Pursuit Of Excellence program in Kelowna. Mick is the son of former Viper coach, Troy Mick.
Aaron Volpatti, a crowd favourite when he played for the Vipers, was on hand for a ceremonial faceoff and to present his signed Vancouver Canuck jersey to the winner of a raffle sponsored by the committee that’s bidding to bring the 2014 RBC Cup to Vernon.