October 6, 2009 – Merritt, BC
Jeff Jones scored twice and added an assist and AlexValenti also had a pair of goals, leading the Merritt Centennials past Trail8-3 on Tuesday night.
Ryne Bodger, Colton Sobchak, Jordan Soquila and DavidSabey had the other Cents goals. Merritt, seventh in the nine-team InteriorConference, snapped a two game winless skid with the victory.
Steve Koshey, Sam Mellor and Sean Nugent scored forthe Smoke Eaters, who are winless in seven games away from the Cominco Arenathis season. Trail falls to eighth in the Interior, two points behind theCentennials. Merritt has two games in hand.
Smoke Eaters starting goalie Garrett Beckwith allowedthree goals on nine shots before making way for Kiefer Smiley, who gave up fivegoals on 21 shots.
Nugent put the Smokies up 1-0 with an even strengthgoal at 2:05 of the first. Sabey evened things up at 4:28 of the opening frame.Valenti scored 1:17 later and added his second of the period at 9:22 to stakeMerritt to a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes.
Jones scored his first of the night at 1:25 of thesecond period on a pass from newly acquired Andrew Pickering, who was playinghis first game with the Centennials after being picked up from Prince Georgefor Brad Bourke on Sunday. Jones notched his second, also from Pickering, on apower play at 11:21 of the second to give the Cents a 5-1 lead after 40minutes.
Soquila wristed a puck past Smiley at 4:27 of thethird to extend Merritt?s lead to 6-1. Mellor unassisted notched the Smokiessecond goal of the night at 5:26 of the final frame before Koshey brought Trailto within three at 10:10. Graeme Strukoff took a double minor for crosschecking and hooking at 16:34 to put the Centennials on a four-minute powerplay to end the game. Sobchak, at 18:09, and Bodger 17 seconds later made it 8-3.
The Cents went 3-5 on the power play while theSmoke Eaters were 0-5.
