Fort Knox made their first appearance in the Prairie Junior Hockey League final over the weekend in Saskatoon, and you never would have known it.
The series opened on Saturday night at Saskatoon’s Rod Hamm Arena.
Madden Wallis opened the scoring in the series for Fort Knox, finding the back of the net just over five minutes into the contest.
The hometown Westley’s poured on the pressure in the middle frame, outscoring Fort Knox 2-1 to enter the third period tied 2-2.
In the third period, the teams traded chances, but Fort Knox’s Zane Winter and Saskatoon’s Spence Stokke stood tall in their respective goals to send the game to overtime.
In the extra frame, Fort Knox survived a miscue on their bench that saw the team forced to kill a too many men on the ice penalty. After the successful penalty kill, Castor Berezuik would find the back of the net with 8:45 to go in overtime to lift Fort Knox to a 3-2 victory.
In game two on Sunday, Fort Knox came out flying. River Banks would open the scoring with his sixth of the playoffs, and Landon Kaban would add a late power-play marker to give Fort Knox a 2-0 lead after the opening 20 minutes.
In the second period, the hometown Westleys would respond as Dario Tabacu would find the net twice to tie the game 2-2 after two periods.
In the third period, the teams once again exchanged chances, with Leland Cody putting Fort Knox ahead to stay with a goal with 12 minutes left in the period. River Banks would wrap up his three-point afternoon with a second goal into the empty net.
Fort Knox leads the best-of-seven league final series 2-0. Games three and four are next Saturday and Sunday in Fort Qu’Appelle.
