Warriors lose overtime thriller

Wasilla goaltender Nathan Banbury was like Superman Friday night.

The problem was when Kenai's Adrian Borchgrevink touched the puck, it turned to kryptonite.

Borchgrevink scored each of the Kardinals four goals in Kenai's thrilling 4-3 overtime victory over the Warriors at the Brett Ice Arena.

Behind the stellar goaltending of Banbury and the steady play of the Warriors, Wasilla was able to hold the lead for a significant amount of the contest.

The Warriors led 3-2 until Borchgrevink took a pass from Owen Brewer and put the puck past Banbury amid commotion in front of the Wasilla crease.

The goal tied the score at 3-3 and eventually send the contest into overtime.

Nearly half way through the extra period, Brewer took a pass from Kenai's Garrett Blossert at the red line and sped toward the Wasilla net. Brewer took a shot on the breakaway and Banbury made the save, but in the process the Wasilla netminder got out of position and lost handle of the rebound. Borchgrevink capped off his massive effort with his fourth goal and the game winner.

Borchgrevink chipped the puck into the open net and Kenai robbed Wasilla of the victory.

Despite the loss, Wasilla head coach Eric Troisi was more the pleased with the effort of his squad.

"This is one of our best performances this year," Troisi said. "We played fantastic."

Wasilla was able to get on the scoreboard early and take a lead.

Defenseman Justin Keel kicked the puck back to Derek Banbury who fired it from the point to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead.

Borchgrevink scored with just 23 ticks left on the clock in the first period to tie the game 1-1.

Wasilla jumped to a 2-1 lead midway through the second period. Eric Zehnder pick up the puck along the boards behind the Kenai net and found Arlin Welch standing beside the Kardinal goal. Welch took the Zehnder pass and slipped the puck alongside the skate of Kardinal goaltender Garrett Myers and just inside the post.

Wasilla struck again late in the third period as Andrew Tumbleson found Joel Kerworthy streaking down the ice. Kerworthy took the Tumbleson pass and outskated the lone Kenai defenseman to earn a one-n-one opportunity. Kerworthy's initial shot on goal was stoned by Meyers, but the Wasilla winger grabbed his own rebound and beat the goaltender.

Just after Wasilla's final goal, Keel was nailed with a 10-minute misconduct and was thus finished for the contest. The loss of Keel caused the Warriors to be down a defenseman, creating fatigue on defense for the Warriors late in the contest. That, combined with increased pressure by the Kenai offense, led to a swing in momentum for the Kardinals.

"We ran four lines through most of the game, but when we lost Keel to the misconduct our defensemen got a little tired," Troisi said.

Though Banbury took the loss, he turned in one of his finest performances of the season stopping 34 shots, including 18 in the second period.

"We knew that when he was on, he is on," Kenai head coach Brian Gabriel said of Banbury. "He was playing his angles well and his team built from his performance."

Another positive note for the Warriors was the play of their special teams. Was not only notched a power play tally in the first period, but killed eight of nine penalties.

"The beginning of the season we were giving up a goal on every other power play," Troisi said of his team's play on the penalty kill. "We were giving up so many. We are so much better now. Before we were giving up goals 50 to 60-percent of the time, now we are down to 20-percent where it should be."

The penalties did force the Warriors to skate shorthanded for six minutes, the major reason why the squad gave up 18 shots.

"Take away the second where we killed six out of 15 minutes and the shots wouldn't be 34-15," Troisi said.

Wasilla has one final week of regular season action before hosting the Region III tournament.

The Warriors will take on Valley foes Palmer and Colony on Friday and Saturday at the Brett Memorial Ice Arena.