On any night five goals would put a team in a reasonable position to win, but not against the Carson Brown and the Kerry Park Islanders.
Five points alone for Carson Brown (4g, 1a), four assists for Brody Lindal, and a four-point night (1g, 4a), for Rylan Davis propelled the Kerry Park Islanders to a convincing 9-5 victory over the Saanich Predators on Friday, Jan. 31. The win gave the Isles 10 and just one loss in the month of January and vaulted the streaking team to first overall, not just in their division but in the entirety of the VIJHL.
"It's an exciting time in the season for us and it's well deserved, all their hard work is paying off," said Islanders' head coach Jake Ebner. "Our message has been the same wince we got back from the Christmas break and that's to take one game at a time and to make sure we stick to what makes us successful and to play 60 minutes."
Ben Stocks set the tone with a goal 88 seconds into the game against Saanich but the Predators answered back just 21 seconds later proving they were up for a battle.
Carson Brown scored his league-leading 39th and 40th goals of the season within a 18-second span to push Kerry Park out to a 3-1 lead before the five-minute mark of the opening frame.
The Islanders weren't done as Bryce Burnett and Parker Lawrence both scored before Brown got his hat-trick with four-and-a-half minutes still left to play in the first.
Kyler Smith rounded out the first-period scoring with his 11th of the year to send Kerry Park into the first intermission with a 7-1 lead.
Rylan Davis and Brown scored seven-seconds apart in the second but Saanich clawed two back to head into the third still leading 9-3.
Two goals in the third period were in favour of the Preds but Kerry Park was too far ahead at that point, and they skated to the 9-5 win.
Noah Stenvig earned the win in goal, making 40 saves on 45 shots.
Stenvig got the back-to-back start and the back-to-back win the following night at home when the Islanders played host to the Port Alberni Bombers at Kerry Park Arena.
Brown's scoring production took a backseat to Burnett's as the latter went off for four goals in a 6-4 win.
Lindal and Filip Nyberg also scored in Kerry Park's 31st win in 41 games.
Up next for the Isles is a road game on Feb. 7 against the Peninsula Panthers followed by a home tilt against the Nanaimo Buccaneers on Feb. 8. The puck drops for both games at 7:30 p.m.
"The next game for the rest of the season is always the biggest game, we have a nice lead in the standings but there are still a lot of points up for grabs and we want to make sure we are giving ourselves a chance at two points each night."
