Compton’s career night leads Chiefs

PORTLAND – Move over, Drayson Bowman. Friday was Seth Compton’s night to shine.

The 19-year-old center had a career scoring night to lead the Western Hockey League’s top team, the Spokane Chiefs, to a 6-2 victory over the bottom team, the Portland Winter Hawks, in Memorial Coliseum.

Compton had the first two-goal game of his career and added two assists for his first four-point game. He has seven goals, one less than he scored last season, which ended with a broken ankle in early February.

His first goal was a momentum-changer. With Spokane short-handed shortly after Portland’s Jacob Dietrich tied the score at 1, Compton banged home the rebound of his shot for a 2-1 Spokane lead.

His second goal came off a face-off with 4:45 to play and capped the scoring in a game that deteriorated into a fight-fest the last couple of minutes.

Bowman, the WHL’s leading goal-scorer, also did his thing as Spokane (31-8-1-2) retained a four-point lead over Tri-City, which visits the Arena tonight coming off a 4-1 win over Kamloops.

Bowman scored his 29th goal – and 12th on the power play, also a league high – midway through the first period. Jared Spurgeon, who assisted on that one, scored his seventh goal midway in the second.

Tyler Johnson (No. 8), on an assist from Compton, and Mitch Wahl (No. 14), off an assist from newcomer Justin McCrae, also had third-period goals.