Griffen Outhouse celebrated his 17th birthday Friday the best way goaltenders can in a game: with a shutout victory. On home ice.
The six-foot 165-pound Cariboo Cougars netminder earned his first shutout of the post-season with a 5-0 win over the South Island Royals at Kin 1 in Game 1 of a best-of-three B.C. Major Midget Hockey League semifinal series.
Game 2 is today at 1 p.m. at Kin 1 where the midget Cats will try to wrap up the series in two games.
Friday night wasn't as easy as the score seemed - at least early on.
Midway through the first period, the Cougars lost of one of their top defencemen in Joel Patsey after he was given a game misconduct penalty for checking from behind.
Patsey was out for the remainder of the game and the Cougars were down to five defencemen.
The Cougars also couldn't bury any of their scoring chances on nine shots on goal on South Island netminder Austin Roden. Neither could the Royals who also had nine shots on net on Outhouse.
That changed in the second period where the Cats found the back four times on only six shots on net.
The offensive outburst began early in a two-minute span with goals from forward Steven Jandric (powerplay) and Chase DuBois.
Seven minutes later, Cougars captain Austin Gray roofed one up high past Roden from in front of the net for a three-goal cushion.
Darren Hards, standing in front of the net, then took a feed from DuBois and lifted it high on his backhand past Roden.
That forced the Royals to pull Roden and replace him with Lane Delfs.
Mitchell Williams added to the Cougars tally when he rang a shot off the crossbar at the 12:16 mark of the third.
DuBois finished the night with a goal and two assists, while Jesse Pomeroy and Justin Almeida each picked up two assists.
In the end, Outhouse swept aside all 21 shots he face in net, while the Cougars fired 21 shots over three periods on the Royals tandem of Roden and Delfs.
Game 3, if necessary is Sunday at 8:15 a.m.
