Penticton's BPO Elks bantam Vees won the bantam rec tourney at Memorial Arena last weekend.
Bryce Burlingame netted a hat-trick to lead Penticton past Vernon 6-1. Jace Canada was outstanding in net during the weekend and was named the most valuable player in the final.
The Elks' tilt against Vernon was tied 1-1 heading into the third when Burlingame scored the natural hat-trick.
The BPO Elks Vees opened with a 5-3 win against McBride. Jacob Obirek scored twice, while Kerman Bahniwal, Nick Huff and Travis Fehr also scored. They earned a 4-4 tie against Langley on goals by Ben Schwabe, Fehr, Brock Schlenker and Jake McHale. In a 4-3 win against Kamlooops, Schwabe scored as did Schlenker and Huff.
The Elks defeated the Lions Club Vees 3-1 in the semifinal on goals by Schwabe, McHale and Fehr.
Elks coach Russ Schwabe said his players played their best hockey of the season.
"They forechecked hard keeping lots of pressure on the other teams defensively and created a lot of tournovers," he said. "We didn’t have an easy game all tourney, our first game was against McBride who was undefeated all year and the boys were a little nervous but stuck to the game plan and came away with a 5-3 victory. That might have been the TSN turning point as the boys started to believe in themselves."
Kelly Spence, coach of the Lion's Club, said even though his team lost its final game, they had a great season. The Lion's Club Vees went undefeated in the round robin defeating Williams Lake, Aldergrove and Port Moody by a combined score of 22-5.
