Juneau Douglas 5, Kenai 3
After upsetting defending champion Houston Hawks 5-4 in overtime on Thursday, the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears rebounded after a 5-2 loss to Palmer in semi-final action by taking 3rd place honors over the Kardinals with a 5-3 victory Saturday afternoon.
The Kardinals led 1-0 with a goal in the first minute of play by Logan Mese and 2-1 with a brilliant Avery Martin score. But the Bears took advantage of an “own goal” to score their opener. After an Evyn Witt rebound fell to the crease, a Kardinal defender inadvertently cleared the puck into the far side of his own goal.
In such cases, the goal is awarded to the closest opposing player, in this case Isaac Phelps.
After Martin’s goal, the Bears tied it a half minute later with a Luke Bovitz score, went ahead 3-2 with an Emilio Holbrook tally, only to have Kardinal center Howard knotting the score 3-3 as the period ended.
Dylan Sowa then showed why he was so key when he scored 4 goals against Houston, as he went to work in the final stanza with a goal and assist to give the Crimson Bears a well-deserved 3rd place finish in the tournament.
Palmer 9, Soldotna 1
Right from the start of the game, the Palmer Moose went on a mission to completely dominate an exhausted Sohi Stars team, 9-1. The score was close at the end of 2 periods, with Palmer leading 3-1.
Palmer began with a goal in the first minute of play in the game, followed by a score at the 7 minute mark. With SoHi’s Daniel Heath backhand power play goal making it 2-1, the Moose added only 1 goal in the 2nd period.
However, it was obvious that their domination would make for a decisive 3rd period in their favor, which quickly came to fruition.
With six SoHi penalties in the 3rd, Palmer tallied 6 unanswered goals to run away with the victory.