Grizzlies continue to dominate their division

Grizzlies Captain Lucas Blinkhorn fires a shot at Kamloops Storm Goalie Anthony Manfredi during Friday night's game. Photo by Staci Thur/Revelstoke Grizzlies
Grizzlies Captain Lucas Blinkhorn fires a shot at Kamloops Storm Goalie Anthony Manfredi during Friday night's game. Photo by Staci Thur/Revelstoke Grizzlies

The Revelstoke Grizzlies defeated the Chase Chiefs 5-3 on Saturday as they continued to dominate the Okanagan Division of the KIJHL.

The win, their second of the weekend, ratcheted up their points total to 43. That’s 10 more than the Chiefs who are tied for second with the Sicamous Eagles at 33 points. The Grizzlies are only one point behind the league-leading Fernie Ghostriders.

The Grizzlies owned the ice for most of the game, which was played before a crowd of 228 at the Art Holding Memorial Arena in Chase, forcing 36 shots on goal, 28 of them in the first two periods. Chase managed 19 shots, but 11 of them came in the third period when they rallied and tried to catch up to Revelstoke.

Brad Friedrick started the scoring at 4:42 in the first period with assists from Riley Spraggs and Reid Blinkhorn. The Chiefs replied at 8:49 in the second with a power play goal, but that was their only goal of the period.

Revelstoke had its own power play two minutes later when Faiz Khan scored off a pass from Spraggs. Spraggs made his own goal at 2:42 with help from Blinkhorn and Kyle Ceretzke, followed by a goal at 2:02 by Luke Richardson from Spraggs and Jordan Bledsoe.

In the third period Chase scored back-to-back goals but they simply couldn’t beat the Grizzlies who frosted it all with a fifth, an unassisted, goal with eight seconds left to go by Lucas Blinkhorn.

The teams had seven penalties in this game. At game’s end Brad Friedrich was the named the First Star and Spragg the Third.

Grizzlies' Goalie Andrew Parent was ready for anything during this weekend's two winning games.  Photo by Staci Thur/Revelstoke Grizzlies
Grizzlies' Goalie Andrew Parent was ready for anything during this weekend's two winning games. Photo by Staci Thur/Revelstoke Grizzlies

The Second Star of the game was Chase’s Devon Hobbs, who scored that team’s last goal of the evening.

On Friday, the Grizzlies edged out the Kamloops Storm with an overtime goal to win 4-3 before 259 fans at The Forum. Revelstoke’s Luke Richardson scored in the first period off Faiz Khan. Brendan Burge scored at 19:57 in the second period from Lucas Blinkhorn, who scored himself at 1:31 from Kyle Ceretzke and Richardson.

Kamloops tied it up in the third period  but Ceretzke scored the OT winner at 2:44 off of Lucas Blinkhorn.

Ceretzke and Blinkhorn were the First and Second Stars, respectively, while Kamloops’ Rylee Orr was the Third. Each team was assessed five penalties in the game. Kamloops made 45 shots on Grizzlies’ goalie Andrew Parent while Revelstoke took 21 on the Storm’s Cole Buckley.

The Grizzlies’ next home games are on Saturday and Sunday when they play the North Okanagan Knights and the Penticton Lakers.

Riley Spraggs catches his breath during Saturday's game against the Chase Chief. He scored one goal and was credited with three assists in the match.  Photo by Staci Thur/Revelstoke Grizzlies
Riley Spraggs scored one goal and was credited with three assists in the match against the Chase Chiefs. Photo by Staci Thur/Revelstoke Grizzlies
DIVISION: Okanagan/Shuswap Conference: Okanagan Division
TEAMGPWLTOTLPTSGFAVGGAAVGPCTL10
Revelstoke Grizzlies2720412431174.30752.800.7965-3-0-2
Sicamous Eagles2516801331054.20853.400.6607-3-0-0
Chase Chiefs29151103331123.90923.200.5695-4-0-1
Kamloops Storm2914110432993.401013.500.5522-6-0-2
Princeton Posse2514803311194.80994.000.6206-2-0-2
Penticton Lakers287190216802.901314.700.2863-6-0-1
North Okanagan Knights274210210843.101405.200.1852-7-0-1