agles Peewee hockey team’s winning streak continued Saturday.
The Eagles beat the Sooke Thunderbirds 8-5 in the first of a three-game series to determine who goes to the provincial championships.
“We haven’t beaten them all year. They’ve beat us three times,” said Coach Marty Gage of the Thunderbirds.
Gage credits the win to his team playing a disciplined game and demonstrating a great attitude on the ice.
A goalie who is on top of his game doesn’t hurt either.
“Our goalie (Kayden Jones) just won the hard hat,” said Gage.
“He’s hot, hot, hot.”
In fact the team as whole is on a roll.
“They’re getting better and better and better. Two more big practices then off to Sooke we go,” he said.
The Eagles will play in Sooke this weekend and have a good chance to represent the North Island at provincials.
“It’s a really exciting opportunity. They’ve earned it though,” said Gage.
The Eagles opened up the scoring early on an unassisted point shot by Liem Wadhams.
The Thunderbirds came back to tie the game at the 10:33 mark, but the Eagles would answer back just 21 seconds later when Mathew Saunders put one in the net off a pass from Luke Gage.
The Eagles would take a 3-1 lead when Joey Grant put one between the legs of the Thunderbirds goaltender. At the end of one, the score was 3-2.
Just 10 seconds into the second period Ryan Patterson capitalized on a slapshot from the point with assists going to Rhys Dutcyvich and Saunders.
In an unassisted play, Dutcyvich put a wrist shot in the net to put the Eagles up 5-2.
The Thunderbirds made things interesting when they put two in a row over a prone Eagles goaltender.
The Thunderbirds then went on the powerplay, managing to score with just one second left to tie things up 5-5.
Dutcyvich would put two more in the net to give himself the hat trick and his team a 7-5 lead.
Saunders and Gage assisted on the first goal and Saunders helped with the second.
The Eagles sealed the Thunderbirds’ fate with an empty net goal by Gage with just 36.6 seconds left on the clock for an 8-5 victory.