Courtenay, BC
Whalers 4 – Tigers 2
After a brief one-game road trip last week to Campbell River, the Whalers returned home for a week of practice as they prepared for a big weekend of games. In town Friday night were the Tigers, ready to pounce on the Whalers as it was the first matchup of the year for both teams. Knowing that the Tigers preferred warm temperatures, the Whalers asked the Sports Centre to bring on the chill – SC2 was freezing on Friday.
With regular goalie Jamie Acorn otherwise engaged (er..umm..getting married), the Whalers turned to Lacey Mortensen to fill in between the pipes. The Tigers struck quickly, scoring a goal two minutes into the contest. But Mortensen was just getting warmed up. Following the goal, she proceeded to turn away shots, some of which were from her own team-mates. She would only be beaten once more, late in the second period on a fluke goal by a former Whaler.
The Whalers countered with a flurry of goals in the first period, by Tera Kasabuchi (assists Josée Bureau, Marianna Stephens), newcomer Melissa “I’m good at every sport even though I’ve never played them” Dekker (assists by Lee McGeorge, Jody Fink) and Teresa Fisher (assist by Deb LaCroix). The first goal was especially pretty as it came on a tic-tac-toe passing play; Whalers goon, Stephens, chipped a pass over to The Desk who snapped it sharply across the crease to a lurking Kasabuchi for the easy tap-in.
The second stanza was filled with back and forth action but saw only one goal, tallied by the Tigers. The Whalers had multiple chances (read – breakaways) to put the game away for good but decided to keep it close by not capitalizing on them. During the second intermission, the team huddled to talk strategy. In her booming voice, team captain Kasabuchi went on a rant, telling the team to shoot more. Her words were definitely taken to heart as early in the third, The Desk found the back of the net on a nice set up from Captain K.
Congratulations are in order to the Whalers defensive corps as they kept the Tigers scoring chance to a minimum. Bert, Allison, Gen and Shirley will have their hands full tomorrow night when the next attack comes from Campbell Creek. Whalers sniper Kayla Novelli was out of commission for the game but told the media she should be back in action for the upcoming tournament in Pt. McNeill. She has been baking pies furiously and hopes to have a team bake sale in the near future.
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