Saturday, October 28th
Kenai 0, Soldotna 3
The Soldotna Stars, defending Division II state champions, closed the Peninsula Ice Challenge with a 3-0 victory over the Kenai Kardinals on Saturday to claim the Ice Challenge championship for 2023. The Stars won all three of their games, beating Service 3-0 on Thursday afternoon, and Houston 6-3 on Friday before taking on the Kardinals Saturday.
Jace Appelhans scored goals in the first and second period, bringing his tournament total to four goals. Appelhans’s first goal was assisted by Andrew Arthur, and his second by Daniel Heath. In the third period, Appelhans found Peyton Williams on a breakaway, which Williams finished off with a nifty backhander, extending Soldotna’s advantage to 3-0.
Tanner Clyde recorded a 25 save shutout in the Soldotna win; he finished he tournament without allowing a single goal.
With the win, Soldotna begins their season 3-0; the Kardinals finished the Ice Challenge with a record of 1-2.
The Stars won’t see action again until the weekend of November 9th-11th when they travel to the Valley for the annual Stars and Stripes Tournament.
Kenai travels to Homer this Friday, November 3rd, to play the Mariners at 7pm.
Follow the hockey schedule at radiokenai.com for current game dates and times, as well as where you can hear them being broadcast.
Friday, October 27th
Soldotna 6, Houston 3
Things looked dicey for the Soldotna Stars to begin their game against the Houston Hawks after the Stars allowed 3 goals in the opening period. They went into the first intermission down 3-0.
Coach Anthony Zurfluh must have delivered quite the inspirational locker room speech, however, as the Stars came out in the second period looking like a very different team. SOHI scored five unanswered goals, and took a 5-3 lead into the second intermission.
After adding on one more goal in the 3rd, SOHI finished off the Hawks by a final score of 6-3.
Boone Theiler finished the game with five points on two goals and three assists.
Tanner Clyde took over in the Stars net after the first period, and extended his shutout streak to 1 2/3 games.
Kenai 4, Service 2
The Kenai Kardinal’s hockey team edged the Service Cougars by a final score of 4-2 Friday night the second of three Peninsula Ice Challenge weekend games for both teams.
Mason Vermette gave Kenai a lead they would never relinquish with a goal as time expired in the first period. Vermette took a puck off the flat board behind the net and managed to spin and sneak it inside the neat post tenths of a second before the period ended.
In the second period, Vermette doubled the Kardinal’s lead, scoring for the second time of the night with an assist from Will Howard at 6:41. A couple minutes later, Howard floated a beautiful pass up to a breaking Logan Mese, who promptly deked Service goalie, Suresh Navitsky, and dumped in a backhander for a 3-0 Kenai advantage.
Service didn’t give up, however, and cut the Kardinal’s lead by one before the end of the second period when Marshal Lavalley scored off an assist by Ricky Webb. 3-1 Kardinals going into the third.
Things continued to heat up when Service’s Sam Bigalke cut the Kenai lead to one 7:00 into the third period. The Kardinals put the game on ice, however, with 1:26 left to play when Logan Mese scored for the second time in the game. Mese was assisted by Avery Martin.
Kenai goalie Levi Crawford finished the game with 15 saves on 17 shots. On the Cougar’s end. Navitsky had a busy night with mixed results, stopping 30 of 34.
