The Penticton Vees survived a stunning last-second tying goal to finally subdue the Westside Warriors.
Eric Filiou scored from a near-impossible angle at 8:17 of overtime to beat the Warriors 4-3 and take the BCHL best-of-seven series 4-2. The Vees will open the Interior Conference championship series against the Vernon Vipers on Friday and Saturday at Wesbild Centre in Vernon.
Filiou fired a shot from the boards that banked in off the skate of goalie Kevin Jebson after Logan Johnston did a magnificent job to keep the puck in at the point and spear it in the direction of his teammate.
Facing elimination, the Warriors had tied the game on a goal by Alex Grieve with less than one second remaining in regulation time.
Johnston ended up with a goal and two assists and Denver Manderson and Ryan Viselli also scored for the Vees.
BCHL scoring champion Beau Bennett returned after missing one game due to injury and picked up an assist, while 20-year-old veteran Filiou had an assist to go along with his series-winning goal.
Brendan Ellis and Cam Reid had the other goals for the Warriors.
Sean Bonar made 36 saves for the Vees and Jebson – who was otherwise stellar in the series – made 30 stops.
The Warriors took the lead on an unassisted marker by Ellis with 1:37 to go in the first period. But the turning point was soon to come as Johnston rifled a hard shot from the left circle with .8 seconds left in the period. Manderson and Bennett tallied assists on the goal.
Penticton kept coming in the second period and were rewarded as Manderson one-timed a pass from Joey Laleggia from the left circle that eluded Jebson at 12:36.
Viselli scored from the exact same spot at 14:51, taking a centering feed from Filiou and whipping a low shot between Jebson‘s pads. Johnston also assisted on Viselli‘s first of the series and fifth of the post-season.
But like they did in a comeback overtime win in Game 4, the Warriors didn‘t quit in the third.
Reid netted his first of the season on a high shot over Bonar‘s glove from Grayson Downing and Tyler Krause at the five-minute mark.
And with their season nearly done, Grieve tied it on a scramble in front of Bonar after Johnston had missed sealing the game for the Vees into an empty net seconds earlier. The puck was actually behind the Westside net with 10 seconds left and crossed the Vees goalline officially with two one-hundredths of a second to go.
The Warriors had the better of the play in overtime, but the Vees finally got some puck luck after hitting numerous posts and running into a hot goalie in the hard-fought series.
Vernon 5 Quesnel 0: Goals by Jonathan Milhouse, Sahir Gill, Cole Ikkala, Connor Jones and Garrett Noonan vaulted the Vipers to an easy victory Tuesday in Quesnel and a 4-2 series win over the surprising Millionaires.
The defending-champion Vipers, who had a 45-25 edge in shots on goal, posted consecutive shutout wins after the Mills had tied the series at 2-2. Graeme Gordon got the shutout.
Alberni Valley 5 Nanaimo 2: Johnny Rogic scored twice as the visiting Alberni Valley Bulldogs beat the Nanaimo Clippers 5-2 on Tuesday to win the series 4-2.
Alberni, owned by the Penticton-based Okanagan Hockey School, will open the Coastal Conference final at home against the Powell River Kings on Friday.
ICE CHIPS: Westside F Tyler Brickler, who missed Game 5 with a leg injury, was back in the lineup for Game 6. Vees F Ben Sexton (undisclosed upper-body injury) missed his fifth straight game. With the return of Bennett, Vees F Hayden Trupp was scratched. . . . Games 3 and 4 of the Vernon-Penticton series goes Monday and Tuesday at the South Okanagan Events Centre in Penticton. Top of Page
