The Quesnel River Rush played two games against the Chase Heat over the weekend. Friday (Jan. 31) at the West Fraser Centre saw the team win, while Sunday (Feb. 2) resulted in a loss.
Friday's game started slow as the first period had no goals for either team. The second period had Chase score the game's first and second goal before the Rush's Bennett Kuhnlein scored the home team's first goal, with an assist from Isaiah Bagri and Gage Parrell. But the Heat scored again and ended the period with a 3-1 lead.
In the game's third period, the Rush bounced back strong. Fraser Davis scored the team's second goal, assisted by Cash Anderson and Bennett Kuhnlein. Eight minutes into the period Gage Parrell tied things up for the Rush with their third goal of the night, assisted by Isaiah Bagri and Lynden Donald-Gorman. Shortly after, Parrell scored another goal which gave the team the lead with a goal assisted by Ian George.
"It wasn't going our way in the first but eventually we got where we wanted to be," Rush coach Jeremy Leblanc said. "Our D-zone coverage early was a bit of a mess but other than that, I think we pulled through the right way." He said one of the things the team needs to work on is to get their power play back to where it was earlier in the season.
With 30 seconds left on the clock Chase pulled their goalie and the Rush's Toren Fron took that chance get another goal for the team, which was assisted by Ian George and Isaiah Bagri.
"The boys battled back from being down 3-1 in the second and then came back in the third and crawled back and made a comeback," Fron said after the Friday game. "Georgie (Ian George) made a nice slip-pass and I just worked by hardest to the puck and put it in the empty net and sealed the deal," he said of his goal.
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The Rush got a one-day break on Saturday while Chase played another team in the Cariboo before heading down to Chase for a game on Sunday.
In the first period, Chase scored, as did the Rush's Ian George with an assist from Cash Anderson and Evan Murray, ending the first period with a 1-1 tie.
Things got rocky for the Rush after that as Chase scored three goals in the second period, two on a power play and one short-handed.
Isaiah Bagri scored another goal for the Rush midway through the third period, but it wasn't enough. The Rush pulled their goalie near the end of the game and Chase returned the favour and scored their fifth goal on the empty net.
The Rush have their next home games on the weekend (Feb. 7 and Feb. 8) at the West Fraser Centre facing the Kamloops Storm. Kamloops is in second place for the division the Rush are in and only two points ahead of them.
