A hat-trick hero and a last-minute winner saved the weekend for the Grand Forks Border Bruins on Friday night in Invermere against the Columbia Valley Rockies.
Forward Izaiah Anderson quadrupled his season tally in Invermere, notching a goal per period to help drag his team to a fourth-consecutive victory.
In a back-and-forth game that had the Border Bruins leading 4-3 after 40 minutes and a six-goal second period, the Rockies tied things up early in the third to take the fight down to the wire.
Anderson’s hat-trick goal gave the Border Bruins a 5-4 lead with nearly 13 minutes to play but Columbia Valley’s Caileb Berge (also named the game’s first star) tied things on the power play with just under five to go.
Before the third period’s buzzer rang though, Border Bruins forward Elvis Slack denied fans some extra free hockey by scoring his team’s sixth of the game with eight seconds on the clock.
Slack then moved on to another stellar performance on Sunday, when his two-goal and one-assist game led the Border Bruins to a 5-2 win against the Golden Rockets. Border Bruins second-stringer Dillon Beebe backstopped the team with a solid 29-save game.
With two more wins from the weekend, the Grand Forks Border Bruins are clawing their way back up the division table, now four points clear of the Castlegar Rebels, who sit at the bottom.
Now the Border Bruins are looking to continue their winning ways with a three-game home stand, which begins Friday at 7 p.m. against the Chase Heat.