The Creston Valley Thunder Cats apparently don’t like losing. After being shut down by a hot goalie in a 4-1 loss to the Columbia Valley Rockies last Tuesday they rolled into Golden with a different outcome in mind.
Different? How about a 16-1 thrashing of the KIJHL bottom dwellers, with the top line of Liam Plunkett, Ronnie Wilkie and Justen James racking up a ridiculous 18 points to lead the way?
“I have know idea if any records were broken on Saturday,” Creston’s head coach Brad Tobin said on Sunday. “It was definitely a surprise to win by that amount. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a score like that.”
James notched a memorable 4 goals and 4 assists, Wilkie had 3 goals and 3 helpers, and Plunkett scored once and added another 3 assists.
The only think in dispute on the lopsided night was the shots on goal figures on the KIJHL stat sheet. In one spot it credits the T-Cats with 72 shots with a 24-32-16 period breakdowns, but it also says the Rockets’ goaltenders faced a total of 56 shots. The final score was not in dispute, however.
Creston opened the game with a 5-goal first period, with a pair by Jack McArdle and singles from James, Plunkett and Wilkie.
An 8-goal second period could not have been pretty to watch for the 350 Golden fans in attendance. McCardle scored to complete his hat trick, with Wilkie, Kason Furukawa, James (with 2 goals), Dawson McGuire, Darby Berg and Jake McGhee chipping in to up the ante.
Golden broke Jayson MacLean’s shutout bid when Jake Gudjonson opened the third period scoring. Wilkie, James and McGuire finished off the scoring for the Thunder Cats.
Not surprisingly, James was named the game’s Away Star.
In sports, sometimes it just isn’t your night. The Thunder Cats had that experience in a 4-1 loss to the Columbia Valley Rockies last Tuesday.
With three players, including number one goaltender Levi Mitchell, out with suspensions from the previous Saturday’s slugfest in Kimberley, the Thunder Cats just couldn’t get more than one puck behind the Rockies’ Joshua King. King faced 46 shots, 15 in each of the first two periods and 16 in the final 20 minutes, to earn the game’s Home Star nod.
Joshua Antunes opened the scoring for the home team, but Justen James (Liam Plunkett and Dylan Rantucci) evened the score at 1-1 after one period of play.
After a scoreless second, Tyler Nypower and Chase Hawkins put the Rockies up 3-1 before Antunes salted away the game with an empty-netter.
Columbia Valley took two of only three minor penalties on a night that was much tamer than the spectacle in Kimberley three nights earlier.
Also missing from the Creston lineup while serving suspensions were Carlson Small and Austin Canete.
The Thunder Cats hosted the Kimberley Dynamiters on Tuesday night, after press deadline. They host the Fernie Ghostriders on Friday night and then head to Kimberley on Saturday for another match against the Eddie Mountain Division leaders.
The romp over Golden had a major effect on the KIJHL scoring race. Liam Plunkett now sits in 2nd place overall, only 2 points behind league leader Josh Bourne of the Chase Heat. Wilkie’s big night vaulted him into sole possession of 4th place and James, who was not in the league’s Top 20 a week ago, is now in a tie for 11th place. His 1.9 points per game average (37 points in 20 games) is bested only by Bourne.