Written by JASON PETERS
Citizen staff
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Saturday, 02 August 2008 |
To keep their gold-medal aspirations alive, the Prince George Westcana Electric Posse needed a victory against the Westshore Bears. Thanks in large part to Isaac Haack, they got one.
Haack, a midget call-up for the junior-aged Posse, scored his team's final three goals in a 12-9 Saturday decision against the Bears. The win was the first for the Posse at the junior B provincial championship tournament, being played at the Kin Centre.
On Friday night, the Posse lost 14-4 to the Coquitlam Adanacs.
On Sunday, the Posse have two games -- at 9:30 a.m. against the Kamloops Rattlers and at 3 p.m. against the Terrace Raiders. With a couple more wins, they would likely play for gold Monday at noon. The bronze-medal game in the five-team tournament is slated for Monday at 9 a.m.
On Saturday, the Posse had a 9-8 lead in the third period when Haack went to work. With about 10 minutes remaining on the clock, he scored the 10th Prince George goal on a breakaway. The Bears then got one back to make the score 10-9, the goal a power-play marker by Nick Graham with 7:02 left to play.
Haack, with Westshore pressing for the tying goal, converted on another breakaway with 23.9 seconds left in the game. And, for good measure, he scored one more time before the buzzer sounded.
"I just wanted to put it away so we wouldn't have to concentrate 100 per cent on defence," Haack said of his late offensive surge. "Whenever I got the chance I just broke through and beat my man and put it in the net."
Posse coach Eugene Bellamy was one happy guy that he had Haack in uniform on Saturday.
"He played awesome out there," Bellamy said. "Isaac is a kid who has so much skill, so much talent. He's a threat any time he's on the floor. This game kind of suits him. We were playing an offence/defence game and he's just got so much offensive skill that you want to have him on the floor."
Haack also took most of the faceoffs for the Posse when the game was on the line.
The Posse trailed 7-4 after the first period and were down 8-7 after two. Offensively, Mike Padalec contributed three goals and one assist for Prince George and was named his team's game MVP. Kevin Piche and Phil Michel each fired a pair of goals for the Posse, while Adam Wasnik and Andrew Schwab also scored. The Bears outshot the Posse 51-40. Jamie Bellamy and Kyle Frederick shared the goaltending duties for Prince George.
A key to the Posse victory was a mostly-successful penalty-kill late in the third. When Prince George was up 10-8, Michel was handed a five-minute slashing sentence. During that time, the Bears only converted once, the Graham tally.
Michel, nowhere close to the ball, had taken a hit to the head from a Westshore player and responded with the slash. He broke his stick over the Westshore player's shins and, as well as the major penalty, received a match penalty. As per the rules, Michel will be ineligible for the next three games, which means he's out for the rest of the tournament.
"That's going to hurt us," Eugene Bellamy said. "Phil is a big part of our offence."
The 1-1 Westcana team will now focus on Sunday morning's game against Kamloops. The Rattlers beat the Posse earlier this season but Haack likes his team's chances this time around.
"We'll have momentum going in against Kamloops," he said. "Kamloops just lost their (Saturday) game (8-2 to Coquitlam) and we just won our game. If we can start out good in that game, I think we can crush them early because they'll be down from (Saturday's) game."
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 02 August 2008 )
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