Kyle Pepper Plays Hero as Victoria Takes Game One

Victoria, BC ~ The Victoria Shamrocks defeated the New Westminster Salmonbellies 15-14 in overtime on Wednesday night from the Q Centre to open the WLA semi finals with one of the wackiest and memorable games in WLA history.

The Shamrocks opened the scoring 2:10 into the game courtesy of a Marshal King tally to raise the home crowd to their feet early. That would, however, be about as much as the crowd would cheer during the first period as New Westminster scored five even strength goals in a row from 5:37 to 11:55 to be well ahead 5-1 with 8:05 remaining in the opening frame. Certainly not the start that the Shamrocks had envisioned. 

Marshal King would get the crowd back on the 'Rocks side with another marker at 14:08 on the powerplay to end the first period down 5-2.

The second period was much better for Victoria, who rattled off three straight tallies to tie the game at five. Jesse King scored twice and Marshal King added to his total making for a hat trick in the first 26:23 of the game. All three of those goals came at; 2:37, 6:23 and 10:21. 

The Salmonbellies responded with two quick goals of their own at 10:55 and 12:42 to retake the lead (7-5). Victoria refused to stay down however and finished the second period with a good run, tying the game at seven after two goals from Cole Pickup at 15:48 and 18:26 to make the crowd the loudest it had been all night.

The third period brought more craziness as both teams exchanged five goals.

Two goals from New West began the frame at 00:48 and 2:54 before Victoria fired back with marks from Jesse King at 3:30 and Kyle Pepper at 8:14. Another two goals from New Westminster put them back up by two at the 9:25 mark, before Mathieu Gauthier found the back of the net at 12:57 and Casey Wilson did the same at 16:11 to make it an 11-11 tie.

New West took the lead with 3:48 remaining and things looked grim for Victoria who just couldn't seem to ever pull away, however Chris Wardle would tie the game for the 'Rocks at 17:05 to send the game to OT.

Overtime brought one of the wackiest, nail-biting and memorable finishes to a game certainly in Shamrocks history.

New West went up 13-12 at the beginning of the full 10 minute extra frame before Clarke Petterson tied it at 2:34. The Shamrocks took their first lead since being up 1-0 when Matheiu Gauthier scored with 2:28 remaining in overtime.

With ten seconds remaining on the clock and the game looking all but over, the Shamrocks turned the ball over in their own zone and Kevin Crowley pounced for the 'Bellies to tie the game at 14 with seven seconds remaining and the Victoria faithful fell silent.

Off the ensuing ball drop, Kyle Pepper dug the ball free for the Shamrocks, moved down the left side and with a quick fake to the left and move to the right, he deposited the ball into the goal with 0.4 seconds remaining on the clock to seal the Shamrocks game one victory.

The 1,400 in attendance on a Wednesday night were certainly treated to a doozy of a game and Victoria opens the WLA best of five semi finals with a victory.