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Preview: Cents Set To Take On Smoke Eaters

Preview – The Merritt Centennials (22-26-4-2) are set to take on the Trail Smoke Eaters (31-19-4-1) tomorrow night at home. The last time that these two teams met was back on January 13th with the Smokies taking that game with a 4-3 final.

 

The Centennials may have lost that game but it was Matthew Kopperud who opened up the scoring for Merritt. Just a minute and a half later Carter Jones from Trail tied the game up. The Centennials weren’t going down without a fight in the first, at the 6:28 mark Kopperud got his second of the game and giving Merritt the lead once again. At the 16:06 mark Trail tied the game up once again. Once again the Centennials weren’t giving up that easily, and it showed at the 18:53 mark of the first frame it was Zach Court being set up from Bradley Cocca and Brendan Schneider. On Kopperud’s two goals the assists came from AP call up Frazer Dodd and Christian Sabin both times.

 

The middle frame there was just one goal and that came from Trail to tie the game up once again at the 10:18 mark, that goal also coming on the power play as Christian Sabin was off for cross checking. The Centennials went one for three on the power play while the Smokies went one for three as well.

 

At the 7:31 mark of the third period Trail got their first lead of the game with a short handed goal coming from Troy Ring. Almost two minutes later Trail jumped up to a 4-2 lead as Braden Tuck got the puck past Jacob Berger. The Centennials did get another goal thanks to Nicholas Wicks scoring on the power play but fell short at the end of the game.

 

Puck drop goes at 7:00 at the Nicola Valley Memorial Arena.

*Just four regular season games remain for the Centennials, three of them at home vs Trail tomorrow night, Salmon Arm Silverbacks (23-26-3-1) on Thursday night at home, which is a makeup game from Saturday night’s cancelled game, Friday night against West Kelowna Warriors (27-26-1-1) at home which is a special night as we honor Ty Pozzobon and Saturday night over in Langley to take on the Rivermen (24-19-10-2) for the final game of the season.*