Koehn Ziemmer completes his first career hat trick, leading the Ontario Reign to a 4-3 victory over the Bakersfield Condors Saturday night.
ONTARIO, CA. -- For the second time in less than 24 hours, the Ontario Reign matched up against the Bakersfield Condors.
Last night, Ontario took home the 4-3 win in Bakersfield, elevating them into first place in the Pacific Division.
Tonight the Reign (31-14-1-1; 64 points) would claim a 4-3 victory against the Condors yet again, improving their season record to 5-1-0 against Bakersfield.
Koehn Ziemmer scored the last three goals tonight, simultaneously earning his first career hat trick and Ontario’s first hat trick since 2024.
“I think I’ve been growing my game a lot,” Ziemmer said. “And I think tonight kind of showed what I’m capable of.”
Ontario coach Andrew Lord said Bakersfield (25-14-7-0; 57 points) came out with a vengeance after last night’s game.
“They (Bakersfield) upped the ante on us early,” Lord said. “We had to scratch and claw to get back into that game and it was really nice to see how it went the last two periods.”
Riley Stillman and James Hamblin scored within two minutes of each other, handing the Condors an early 2-0 lead.
With an assist from Nikita Alexandrov, Cole Guttman would score a power-play goal for his 17th goal of the season.
But Bakersfield’s Damien Carfagna would find the back of the net before the first period ended to put the Condors on top 3-1.
“The second and third was our way,” Lord said. “Playing fast, playing behind them - on the forecheck, on the cycle. I thought our group was really relentless and (our) shot volume was there, the traffic was there…”
Lord smiled and said:
“...And then Ziemmer was there.”
Ziemmer’s first goal came 2:40 into the second period and he found the back of the net two more times in the final period to complete a hat trick and lead Ontario to their third straight win.
Pheonix Copley had 18 saves and Ontario finished with 31 shots on goal compared to Bakersfield’s 21 shots.
The Reign went 1-for-6 on the power play and the Condors went 0-for-3.
Ontario has a week off as they head into the All-Star break and will travel to Abbotsford to face the Canucks (16-26-3-3; 38 points) Saturday at 7 p.m.
Category: General Sports
