CALGARY – Sam Sargent and Carter Poddubny gave the Kam River Fighting Walleye the lead on two separate occasions, but it wasn’t enough to earn the SIJHL champions a second win at the Centennial Cup.
Benson Hirst and Brett Ward scored two minutes apart in the third period on Monday night, enough to propel the Northern Manitoba Blizzard to a 3-2 at the Centennial Cup in Calgary.
Sargent broke a scoreless tie, beating the Blizzard’s Taye Timmerman at 13:38 of the second period, but Manitoba’s Quincy Supprien answered on the power play in the final minute of the middle stanza, tying the game at a goal apiece.
Poddubny needed just 52 seconds of third period play to give Kam River a 2-1 lead, but less than three minutes later Hirst tied it up, beating Fighting Walleye goaltender Ashton Sadauskas.
Sadauskas faced 31 shots on the night, stopping 28 of them. Timmerman had far less action at the other end of the Max Bell Centre ice, good on 11 of 13 shots he faced.
Manitoba went 1-for-6 on the power play, while the Fighting Walleye were 0-for-1. Kam River (1-2) takes on Greater Sudbury (1-2-0) on Wednesday afternoon.
Kam River, with two points, is currently in fifth place in the Group A standings, five points behind Manitoba (2-0-1).
