Petterson Propels Shamrocks To Opening Night Victory

Victoria, BC ~ The Victoria Shamrocks rode a four goal performance from Clarke Petterson to take down the visiting Maple Ridge Burrards 11-5 on Friday night in front of 2,653 fans at the Q Centre for the 'Rocks home and season opener.

Victoria got off to a torrid start that saw them jump out to a 4-0 lead before the eight minute mark of the first. That hot start saw goals from Patrick Dodds (1), Clarke Petterson (1) and Chris Wardle (1,2).

Maple Ridge answered back with two of their own before the period was up (Marcus Klarick (1) & Ryan Jones (1)) to have the home side leading 4-2 after twenty minutes and outshooting the visitors 25-11.

Rhys Porteous (1) gave Maple Ridge a strong start to the second by finding the back of the net but it would be all Shamrocks from there to seemed to have a fire lit beneath them, seeing their lead cut to one. They rattled off five unanswered before the period came to a close to stake themselves to a 9-3 lead after forty. Those tallies came by way of; Clarke Petterson (2,3,4), Kyle Pepper (1) and Elijah Gash (1). 

The 'Rocks picked right up where they left off in the second by going up 11-3 after nine minutes in the third. Kyle Pepper (2) and Davis McCulley (1) were the men to score.

Maple Ridge found two late goals from Kaden Doughty (1) and Marcus Klarich (2) but the damage was already done and the Shamrocks faithful were treated to an entertaining and action packed beginning to their 75th anniversary campaign.

Clarke Petterson was a deserving first star with four goals and an assist while Kyle Pepper took home second star with two goals including the game winner. Elijah Gash, who was brought in during the offseason to provide some size and snarl on the backend, endured himself to the home faithful with a resounding goal and assist performance from the backend while also being involved in an early game tussle with Jackson Suboch that saw Suboch ejected from the game for an instigator major. It is safe to say that Gash got the last laugh.

With a win this evening Victoria extends their regular season winning streak to 21 games and have not lost a regular season game since July 20, 2023.

Victoria is back in action tomorrow night from the Poirier Sports Complex in Coquitlam for a date with the Adanacs.