The Vernon H&L Glass Junior Vipers earned their third gold medal of the season at the Atom A Development minor hockey tournament in Kelowna.
The junior Vipers squared off against the hosting Kelowna A2 Rockets in the finals and racked up three first-period goals en route to a 6-2 victory on Jan. 19.
Dominik Silbernagel and Berkeley Reid each had two goals in the gold-medal match, and Colton Sitter and Mathis Paull rounded out the Vipers’ scoring.
The Vipers won despite taking eight minor penalties compared to Kelowna’s three.
The tournament started off on a much different note, with Kelowna’s A1 team dropping the Vipers by a score of 6-3. Sitter had the team’s first goal of the tournament, while Paull had a pair of third-period tallies.
Game 2 was an offensive outburst for the young Vipers, who beat the Kamloops Atom Blazers 9-6. Paull, Hudson Podollan and Jack Saxton had two goals each, while Max Power, Silbernagel and Sitter landed on the score sheet.
Game 3 versus Cochrane saw the Vipers put up another 10 goals including hat tricks from Sitter and Cohen Hogberg, and a pair from Alexander Sharman.
The team had plenty of momentum heading into the semi-final game against West Vancouver, and again the offence came through. Two-goal efforts from Saxton and Podollan lifted the mini-Vipers to the final.
The Vipers previously won gold medals in Jasper and Spokane, and the team will head to the Lower Mainland for their next tournament on Feb. 14.
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