Taylor Siemens picked the perfect weekend to find her offensive prowess.
The 16-year-old defenseman scored twice for the Northern Capitals in a 4-3 victory over the Fraser Valley Rush Friday night at the Ernie Same Memorial Arena, along the Nak’azdli Whut’en First Nation in Fort Saint James.
Siemens, is one of three Capitals players from the Vanderhoof area opened the scoring at 10:58 of the first period, beating Rush goalie Layla Roberts.
The 16-year-old then lit the lamp again five minutes later to extend the Caps advantage.
Fraser Valley’s Anna Diane McKee got sprung on a breakaway rifling a wrist shot past Caps netminder Payton Planetta.
Smithers product Gabby Meier came up clutch for the Capitals notching two goals in the final five minutes, including a snipe on a 2-on-1 rush, ending the night for Roberts who allowed four goals on 18 shots.
In the middle period, McKee attempted to engineer a Fraser Valley comeback by tipping home a Madeline Collins point shot by Planetta cutting the deficit to 4-2.
McKee completed the hat-trick with a late third period goal, however, the Rush failed to even the score with the goalie pulled in the dying minute.
The Capitals outshot the Rush 32-25 including an 18-7 margin after the first period.
With the win, the Caps improved to 10-10-0-1. The Rush dropped to 7-10-1-2.
Planetta made 22 saves in the win while Keira Pong stopped 14 pucks over the final two periods for the Rush.
Capitals captain Lauren Baker and fellow defenseman Sarah Prestmo are also from Vanderhoof.
Siemens, Baker and Prestmo will get to play in front of their hometown crowd Saturday morning as the Rush and Capitals play the second half of their double-header at 9am from the Vanderhoof Arena.
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