Centennials Trample Vipers:

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Centennials Trample Vipers

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - Submitted by Don Klepp

The Merritt Centennials broke out of their slump in a big way in Tuesday’s lone BCHL game, with a 7-1 home victory over the Vernon Vipers.

The Centennials had lost six in a row, including 4-0 and 4-1 defeats in Vernon, but they regained their scoring touch as they cashed in half of their scoring chances. Despite being outshot in the first two periods, they took a 4-0 lead into the second intermission and after surrendering a goal in the third, they rubbed salt in the Vipers’ wounds with three more opportunistic strikes.

Chad Brears and Brandon Bruce led the Merritt attack with two goals apiece. Brears gave the Cents a 2-0 lead in the first period, both in Kirby Halcrow’s crease. At 12:13, as three Cents crashed the crease, the puck bounced off Brears’s leg. The Vipers protested, claiming a kicking motion, but referee Steve Papp upheld his original call.

With four seconds remaining in the opening frame, Viper defenders relaxed in the corner to the right of Halcrow and a trio of Centennials brought the puck to Halcrow’s crease, where Brears banged it in.

Brandon Bruce then took care of the second period scoring. At 1:57, he followed Carter Shinkaruk to the net and popped in a rebound. He then took advantage of sleepy Viper defencemen to take a breakaway pass from Dylan Chanter and slip the disk between Halcrow’s pads at 14:44.

With the weight on their shoulders of shutout losses in their previous two appearances at the Nicola Valley Arena, the Vipers looked like they might be blanked again, but they finally got on the board at 3:38 of the third period. Mike Zalewski swept behind the net and set up John Knisleyfor a one-timer.

In that final frame, the Vipers generated more scoring chances than their hosts, but were limited to the one goal by Lino Chimienti’s solid goaltending and by the Merritt defenders’ ability to clear rebounds.

Merritt’s three remaining goals resulted from a combination of Centennial determination and indifferent Viper defending.

The win moves Merritt one point past idle Prince George in the race for second place in the Interior Division, while the Vipers lost a chance to tie Chilliwack for the last playoff spot in the Interior.