The Centennials won the battle of the “AP” goaltenders as Colton Phillips-Watts stops 48 of 51 shots to give Merritt their third win of the season and first over the Smoke Eaters 5-3.
Special teams and the injury bug for the Smoke Eaters played a role tonight as they failed to comeback a second time in tonight’s game. The Cents took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission as Jakob Jones finished off a 2-on-1 for the Centennials to score his first BCHL goal. The Smoke Eaters would outshoot the Cents 16-7 in the first but find themselves behind.
In the second the Centennials doubled their lead by scoring their first of two goals on the powerplay on the night to make it 2-0. The Smoke Eaters would the charge back almost immediately with Zach Michaelis getting on the scoring first. The Smoke Eaters kept the puck in as Brady Hunter provided the hold and found Quinn Disher who was in behind the Cents defenfeman with Michaelis for a 2-on-0 in tight, as Disher gave Michaelis the perfact pass to get Trail on the board.
The Smoke Eaters would then tie the game two minutes later as on a delayed penalty Josh Schenk would drive the net and score. On the goal Corey Cunningham would pick up a point, giving him his 100th BCHL career point!
The Cents then charged back through a powerplay goal and another 2-on-1. Merritt had two separate 5-on-3 powerplays in the second with the Smoke Eaters killing the first but failing to kill the second as late in the middle frame Merritt would restore their two goal lead and take a 4-2 lead into the third period.
The Cents started the period by adding an insurance goal to make it 5-2 just after the media timeout. The Smoke Eaters put another 18 shots on Phillips-Watts in the Merritt net with only one getting by him late in the game as Joel Barton added his third of the year with a seeing eye wrist shot to beat the Merritt netminder.
That would be as close as the Smoke Eaters got as the Centennials pick up a 5-3 win on home ice. The Smoke Eaters will now travel to West Kelowna to take on the Warriors on Sunday night.
