For the first time since 2016, the Vernon Tier 2 Vipers U15 hockey team are champions of the Okanagan Mainline Amateur Hockey Association (OMAHA).
The Vipers had to do it the hard way, winning two straight overtime playoff matches en route to the title earlier this month.
After a long regular season, Vernon headed into the playoffs as a mid tier team. In game one, the Vipers soundly dispatched West Kelowna 8-1. They followed it up in game two with a tough 5-3 loss to Kelowna, which would set up a must win third game to get into the semifinals.
Down 3-2 heading into the third period against Salmon Arm, Vernon’s Max Power tied the game up with just 4:37 left in the third. Then, Daniel Cooke made it 4-3 Vernon a minute later. Emily Boyd, who is one of two girls on the integrated Vipers squad, added an empty netter to seal the victory and set up a rematch in the semifinal against Kelowna.
Again, the Vipers found themselves down 3-2 heading into the third.
Kelowna would go up 4-2 midway though the period, before Vernon clawed one back less than two minutes left in the game, off the stick of Power.
With 54 seconds remaining, the Vipers pulled their goalie while on the power play and Power delivered the electricity again with his second of the game to tie things up and send it to overtime.
In the first five minute overtime period, no one scored. The second overtime, now a three-on-three, was tight before Power flung the puck to Vernon’s Ben Hunsberger who subsequently fed it to Nathan Wilson to bury the winner and send the Vipers to the final.
The final, against the top ranked Penticton team, had never been beaten by Vernon this season.
In the opening period, Justice Gommerud, in his first playoff game of the year, buried the puck into the net to give Vernon the lead. Penticton would respond 10 minutes later to tie things up.
Vernon goaltender Emma Ward was barraged for the rest of the game, but held her own, stopping all 56 shots to lift the Vipers into overtime.
Then, just 16 seconds in, Gommerud would rip home his second of the game to give the victory to the Vipers and send them to the provincial championships.
“At the start of the season, the first week we touched the ice, we set a target to play in the B.C .Championships,” said Vernon head coach Todd Connolly. “To do that we had to win the OMAHA League Playoffs and the team ran stairs every week, hit the gym with trainer Robin Nanji every week in addition to practicing twice a week. They came together as a team, played for each other and willingly made sacrifices.”
Connolly shouted out team manager Meg Irwin, safety person Chase Irwin, and equipment manager Montie Hogberg for their continuous support as the Vipers will now enter provincials as one of eight teams.
The provincial championships will take place in Salmon Arm from March 16-20
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