Braves Weather the Storm

Greenwell is full marks for Shutout

The Kamloops Storm, feisty after their come from behind win on Friday night, came on strong early but fizzled in the end to drop a 3-0 lightly entertaining game on Saturday night at the Mac Island SportPlex. The Storm outshot the Spokane Braves 34 - 21 but just couldn't solve goaltender Jason Greenwell.

Greenwell was called upon to be brilliant in every period and was equal to the task. The Kamloops shooter played right into his strengths, testing him in the bottom corners where the butterfly pad save flashed to save against certain goals. When he wasn't called on to make the pad save, Greenwell covered his angles well and forced the Storm shooter to hit him in the belly.

Spokane looked particularly listless in the first period. They played methodical but without a whole lot of jump. Kamloops seemed to have some carryover zip from the night before and it looked like it could be a long night for Spokane.

Kamloops had 10 powerplay opportunities to Spokane's 5 and were not able to score. The Spokane defense played well in keeping the Kamloops shooters to the outside and sacrificed themselves by blocking shot after shot. The actual shots on net were not indicitive of the play. Kamloops dominated much more than the stats revealed.

In the 3rd period, after killing off a 4 min. minor to Alex Lelwica for spearing, tough guy David Manzo picked up a rebound in front of Manfredi and rifled in Spokane's first and winning goal on the power play. Just over a minute later, Johnny Clark showed flashes of brilliance on the rush, drawing a couple of Kamloops players to himself and finding a wide open Evan Witt who scored with a quick wrister up high over Manfredi's blocker.

Alex Lelwica closed out the scoring with 5:10 remaining when he picked up a rebound on a shot from Brandon Lassiter.

Kamloops sits in the middle of the pack (3rd place) in the Okanagan Shuswap Division and returns to action this Tuesday when the travel to Revelstoke to face the first place Grizzlies.

Next home game and broadcast will be on Friday Jan 12th against division rivals Princeton at 7:30.

DaveO - KamloopsStormWriter