Abbotsford, B.C. – The Cariboo Cougars had yet another strong offensive second period with four goals on the way to an 8-4 win over the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds in Abbotsford Saturday.

After a struggle on special teams against the Canadians a week earlier, the Cougars scored four times on the power play and once shorthanded as they broke a two-game mini slide.

The game didn’t start the way the Cats had hoped as the T-Birds opened scoring just four and a half minutes in with a goal from Kyle Lennea.  The Cougars evened it up with just under eight minutes to go with Braiden Epp’s 12th of the season from Liam Blackburn.

The Cats scored six more unanswered goals, two late in the first from Donovan Law and Epp again for the 3-1 lead heading into the second.

Blackburn got his team leading 15th early in the second on the power play with a nice cross-ice feed from Epp to make it 4-1. Nick Headrick scored his second of the season, Brad Morrison his 11th, and Ryan Forbes his eighth all on the power play for the 7-1 lead. But a bit of a defensive breakdown late in the period saw two Fraser Valley goals get by Nathan Warren to make it 7-3 after 40 minutes.

The score remained unchanged until the final two minutes of the third when Lennea scored his second of the game with 1:25 left on the clock to come to within three. Forbes then notched his second of the game from Tyler Povelofskie and Kirk Hards 11 seconds later for the game’s final tally.

The Cougars outshot the T-Birds 42-18 with Warren picking up his 11th win on the year. Blackburn finished the game with four points, Epp with three, while Forbes, Headrick, Law, Hards, Morrison, Povelofskie, Eli Jarvis, and Logan Styler all had two point games.

The win moves the Cougars to 16-5 on the season but with wins from the Okanagan Rockets and the Vancouver NW Giants the Cats were unable to make any headway in the standings remaining two points back of the Rockets and six back of the Giants for third place in the BCMML.