Sp'Ooked, but Victorious: NAIT Escapes With a 4-2 Win

By Jeremy and Sam Demoskoff

Briercrest outworked, outhit, outskated, and outchanced the visiting NAIT Ooks Friday night, but they just didn't get that little black disc in the net enough times.

NAIT are the defending champs, perennial contenders and they boast 16 league championships throughout their illustrious history. But the Clippers made the Ooks look like they were wearing kryptonite most of the evening as they poured a season-high 43 shots on NAIT's player of the game, Taryn Kotchorek. He may have looked like a leopard with all of the puck marks, but he got the job done as his team managed to escape with a 4-2 victory.

"They're a great, hardworking team," said Kotchorek. "They continually put pressure on us… they came out firing tonight."

Briercrest opened the scoring midway through the first period as Alex Pellerin ripped a shot that Kotchorek couldn't handle and a juicy rebound was there for Cole Stevenson to put home. 

A three goal outburst in the middle frame by the opportunistic Ooks built them a 4-1 lead heading into the third, at which point the Clippers tilted the ice and pressed for the comeback. The boisterous crowd had several moments to celebrate: big hits by Reagan Poncelet and Caleb Grandfield, a miraculous save by Dominik Tmej, and a big goal by player of the game Theo Citrullo- his first as a Clipper. 

Despite sending lots of rubber at the NAIT net, Kotchorek stood tall and the Ooks hung on as time expired. 

Briercrest will look for a repeat of the effort with different results in the rematch tomorrow afternoon. "When we played our game and were physical we were really effective," reflected Citrullo after the game. "We know that if we keep doing that, we're pretty confident that we can beat them."