The Penticton Vees’ unofficial second half to the season started with a 4-3 setback on the road to the Salmon Arm Silverbacks on Saturday at the Shaw Centre in the North Okanagan.
The Vees have now lost four of their last five games, as they head to Vernon Sunday to face the Vipers in a New Year’s Eve matinee starting at 2 p.m.
Saturday’s game was a far departure from the previous two meetings with the Silverbacks. In the first two games between the two teams earlier in December, they combined for just four goals. Saturday, they combined for seven goals and three lead changes in a back-and-forth game.
Penticton trailed 2-0 after the first period but stormed back for three straight goals in the second to take a 3-2 lead. Salmon Arm then countered with back-to-back goals late in the middle frame to take back a 4-3 lead.
Salmon Arm has now won the first three meetings of the season series, as these two teams don’t meet again until Feb. 2.
Anselmo Rego, Thomas Pichette, and Billy Renfrew scored in the loss. All three Vees’ goals came in the second period. Rego marked his return to the lineup with his fourth goal of the season, after he had missed the last 15 games due to an injury.
Will Ingemann was tagged with the loss in net, as he stopped 17 of 21 shots.
Maddux Martin and Cole Cooksey scored in the opening frame for the Silverbacks, who had a two-goal lead after one period, despite being outshot 17-10.
Rego cut into that deficit just before the three-minute mark of the second, as he scored his first goal since Oct. 24. Pichette then tied the game two minutes later, as he scored on a great no-look pass from behind the net by Attila Lippai. Renfrew gave the Vees their first and only lead midway through the middle stanza, when he scored a power play goal off a rebound at 11:36. The lead was short lived.
Half a minute after Renfrew had given the Vees a 3-2 lead, Salmon Arm’s Isaac Lambert made it 3-3 as he scored on a quick backhand deke, after he found himself alone in front of the net. Then, with under two minutes left in the second, Cooksey scored his second of the night to put Salmon Arm back ahead 4-3.
Penticton came close to tying the game, inches in fact, as Francesco Dell’Elce blasted the puck off the crossbar in the third. The Vees also pressured in the final two minutes with the goalie pulled but could not manufacture an equalizer.
The Vees are now 7-4-2-2 on the road, as they have lost five of their last six away from the SOEC.
The Penticton team doesn’t have a home game until Jan. 12 when they play Vernon. They are back-to-back that weekend with the Saturday game against Cranbrook.
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