Trail minor hockey product Nathan Dann netted a hat trick in a 5-3 Castlegar Rebels win over the Beaver Valley Nitehawks Saturday.
A costly 4-3 overtime loss to Columbia Valley Rockies on Friday carried over to Saturday’s game versus Murdoch Division rival Castlegar Rebels on Saturday.
Castlegar’s Jacob Moldenhauer tallied the game winner on the power play with 2:45 to go in the second period. Nitehawks goalie Kevin Engman made a brilliant save off a backdoor pass, but the Hawks failed to clear the zone. Engman made another save off a pointshot, but after a couple tries Moldenhauer buried the rebound to give the Rebels a 4-2 lead.
The win is Castelgar’s second of the season, as they improve to 2-4-1-0, while the Nitehawks sit atop the Murdoch Division with a 5-2-1-0 record.
Beaver Valley opened the scoring when Hunter Burgeson took a pass from Brody Martini, broke in and beat Ethan Lawczynski low glove side just over six minutes in.
Jesse Courville-Lynch tied it banging in a big rebound off Engman with 7:10 left in the opening frame.
Rossland product Ethan Jang made it 2-1 Nitehawks, converting a nice 2-on-1 pass from Ethan Smyth, three minutes into the middle frame.
However, 29 seconds later, Dann scored his second of the season and first of the game on a similar play, finishing a Rebels 2-on-1 to tie it.
Dann made it 3-2 Rebels when he skated through neutral ice and blasted a shot from outside the blue line that eluded Engman.
Moldenhauer sent the Rebels to the third period with a 4-2 lead, before Dann completed his hat trick on a nice individual effort at 17:35.
The Nitehawks Ollie Clement scored his second of the season with 2:07 remaining for the 5-3 final.
Castlegar outshot B.V. 37-33, and were 2-for-7 on the power play, while the Nitehawks went 0-for-5.
Friday’s match versus the Rockies was a physical and at times a chippy battle between the two Kootenay Conference division leaders.
The Nitehawks were without assistant captain and veteran defenceman Jesse Ihas and dynamic forward Austin McKenzie against the Rebels. Ihas was assessed a four game suspension and McKenzie a two game suspension following altercations against Columbia Valley on Friday.
Kayde Kinaschuk scored with 27 seconds left in the overtime period, converting a setup from Kaelan Shelton for the 4-3 Columbia Valley win.
The Rockies also went on to defeat the Grand Forks Border Bruins on Saturday to improve their record to 6-2-0-1, good enough for top spot in the Eddie Mountain Division.
The Nitehawks, Ethan Smyth gave B.V. a 1-0 lead in the first, before goals from Cole Brock and Jakob McLean gave the Rockets a 2-1 lead at the end of two.
Joel Smyth tied it at two, before Brock made it 3-2. Jang knotted the game at 3-3 with just under five minutes to play to force the overtime.
C.V. outshot B.V. 49-41, and with over 160 minutes of penalties assessed, the Rockies were 1-for-8 and the Nitehawks 1-for-5 on the power play.
Beaver Valley is at home on Friday to Grand Forks at 7 p.m., and head to Creston on Saturday for a game vs the Thunder Cats.