Morning Star Staff
It was an all-Vernon golden showdown in the Kamloops Atom Development Hockey Tournament Sunday with the H&L Glass Vipers icing the Valley Manufacturing Wolfpack 9-4.
The Vipers, coached by Cory Nicholson, went 5-0 and narrowly beat out the Wolfpack for first spot in the round-robin on a goals differential tiebreaker.
Game MVP Maguire Nicholson paced the Vipers with 3+2 in the final at McArthur Island Sports Centre’s Olympic Arena.
Ryan Cox counted 2+2, while other goals came from Morgan Hackman, Hutton, Mark Johnson and Kai Maleniza. Lyndon Carleton compiled two assists.
Game MVP Ollie Reid, Jeffery Curtis, Charlie Swartz and Hudson Kibblewhite countered for the Wolfpack, coached by former Junior A Viper captain Garth Gartner.
The Vipers parlayed 3+2 from Hackman into an 8-1 opening win over Abbotsford. Nicholson added 2+1, while Cox, Johnson and Dominic Meyer fired singles.
The Vipers then erased a 4-2 deficit and zapped North Delta 10-4 behind a hatty from Nicholson and singles from Meyer, Hackman, Johnson, Carleton, Cox, Tylan Hutton and Maleniza.
Johnson and Nicholson each provided deuces as H&L upended Cloverdale 6-2.
The Vipers met Cloverdale again in the semifinals and won 11-3 with Nicholson getting 3+1 and Cox 2+2. Oliver Murray and Hutton also dialed deuces, while Hackman scored once and Alessandro Durfeld had three assists from the point.
The Pack doubled Cloverdale 10-5, grounded Kamloops 5-1 and outlasted North Delta 10-8 in preliminary action. The Pack iced Kamloops 6-3 in the semis.
Reid scored twice in the semi, while Kibblewhite, Curtis and Ashton Rysen contributed singles. Cole Gartner collected two assists and was named game MVP. Round-robin MVPs were Kibblewhite, Swartz and Braden Tumber.
In Atom Super League play, the North Okanagan White Knights got three goals from Aiden Wattie in a 7-2 win over Salmon Arm #2 Saturday at Nor-Val Sports Centre.
Cody Collette, Parker Levesque, Gavin Smith and Kohen Pounder counted singles in front of Brayden Rypkema.