Zach Zahara made 30 saves and the Brooks Bandits held off the Penticton Vees 2-1 in Game 1 of the Interior Conference finals at the South Okanagan Events Centre on May 2.
Parker Lalonde and Nathan Brown scored for Brooks, who leads the best-of-seven, third-round series 1-0. Game 2 is set for Saturday night, May 3, in Penticton.
Callum Stone found the back of the net for the Vees, who were handed their first playoff loss in 2025. Will Ingemann made 21 saves.
In a battle of the BCHL's best from the regular season, Brooks drew first blood when Lalonde scored his eighth goal of the postseason, beating Ingemann stick side from the right wing just 41 seconds into the second period.
Brown was credited with the Bandits' second goal, at 17:14 of the middle frame, as he got a piece of Michael Liśćinsky’s pass from the wall that trickled into the net.
Stone got Penticton on the board at 12:44 of the third period to make it a 2-1 game. Off a face-off win in Brooks' zone, the defenceman fired a shot from the point through a screen that beat Zahara.
The Vees were unable to find the equalizer after pulling Ingemann in favour of an extra attacker with less than two minutes to play. Zahara made eight saves in the final frame.
Up next
After Game 2 on Saturday, the series will shift to Alberta for the series' third and fourth games on Monday and Tuesday.
The winner of the series will play either the Chilliwack Chiefs or Victoria Grizzlies for the Fred Page Cup. Victoria owns a 1-0 lead in the Coastal Conference finals after picking up a win on Friday night.
