Interior teams capture pair of victories to open 2010 BCIHL Championships

In a twist that was due more to statistics than geography, Okanagan College and Thompson Rivers University found themselves on the home bench for Thursday games against Trinity Western and the University of the Fraser Valley. But despite coming in as the travelling teams, the Crusaders and WolfPack opened the 2010 BCIHL Championships with comfortable wins that delay potential elimination games until at least Saturday.

In the afternoon opener, Craig Materi and Micah Anderson combined for six points en route to a 6-2 win over the host Titans. Okanagan opened up a 3-0 lead midway through the second period in large part due to a pair of power-play tallies, but Trinity Western did close the gap to within a goal to make for a tense final 20 minutes.

The Titans even enjoyed a brief 6-on-3 during the third, as TWU head coach Dwayne Lowdermilk pulled netminder JP Chapman with his team pressing on a two-man advantage. But the Crusaders killed off the penalties and soon after put the game out of doubt on Materi's second goal of the night. Derek Liebel and Andrew Rebus scored late to close out the win.

Meanwhile, Thompson Rivers spoiled Fraser Valley's hopes of an evening upset after Joel Leonard notched a natural hat trick in an 8-2 victory. Simon Brouwer had put the Cascades ahead briefly off a first period power-play, but Leonard then struck for three before his teammates piled on with a foursome of third period goals.

Cody Rose, Cody Lockwood and Jassi Sangha also contributed three-point efforts for the WolfPack, who now move on to a Saturday afternoon match-up against the winner of Saturday's SFU-Okanagan contest.

Blake Tancock received the start and made 27 saves in the TRU win, while Fraser Valley's Adam Postmus was victimized for eight goals on 25 shots. UFV will now face Trinity Western in an elimination game on Friday afternoon.

For full coverage of Friday's BCIHL action, tune in to live streaming audio via the front page links provided on www.bcihl.ca.