Above Photo: Sophiesphotographys
Coquitlam, BC ~ The Coquitlam Express put up six on Tuesday night against the Victoria Grizzlies to take game three and cut the Victoria series lead to 2-1
Victoria began the game on the front foot and found themselves up 2-0 in the first seven minutes of the game thanks to goals from Landon Mackie (2) and Julian Cull (1). Those goals came at 4:08 and 6:09 respectively.
Coquitlam would answer back at 9:51 against the run of play when Jack Sullivan found the puck on his stick in the slot and wired a shot top shelf to cut the Grizzlies lead in half.
The Grizzlies were however not content with a two goal first and added a third on the powerplay. Chase Pirtle (2) was the man who tickled the twine, taking a pass from Reegan Hiscock, walking into the slot and ripping a wrist shot of the cross bar and in. Victoria lead 3-1 after twenty minutes.
Coquitlam, who was in a desperate state down 2-0 in the series, responded with a big second period as would be expected. Mason Kesselring (1) stole a puck at the Grizzlies blue line and slid the puck through Kyle Kelsey’s legs to pull within one and just under three minutes later James Shannon (1) tied the game on the powerplay.
Coquitlam was not done there as Carson McGilney tipped a puck home in front of the Grizzlies goal at 10:12 to give the home side the lead 4-3 which they would hold onto heading into the third.
Victoria would control the run of play in the third however it was again the Express scoring against the run of play when Cam Russo put a nice feed across for Nate Crema (1) to finish off at the back post on a two on one. Trip Pendy would add an empty netter after the Grizzlies had hit the post twice in the final two minutes to add insult to injury and close out the scoring at 6-3.
Victoria outshot Coquitlam 48-23 on the evening however it was the Express taking advantage of some Grizzlies errors in the first ten minutes of the second period that changed the game in favor of the Express.
Kyle Kelsey made 17 saves on 22 shots for the Grizzlies while Andrew Ness made 45 saves on 48 shots for the Express.
Game four goes tomorrow night from the mainland at 7:00 PM and tickets go on sale tomorrow at noon for game five from the Q Centre.
