The Penticton Vees earned their fifth straight victory on Sunday evening at the South Okanagan Events Centre with a 6-1 triumph over the Trail Smoke Eaters.
The Vees showed strong early jump in the game, scoring four times in the opening 20 minutes of play beginning with a marker from their captain, Fin Williams, just over five minutes into the game as the Vees scored first for the fourth time in five contests.
While on the power play, Williams made a nice play to outwait Smoke Eaters goaltender Cayden Hamming on the blocker side and tuck a puck in for his 2nd goal of the season at the 5:01 mark of the opening period to give Penticton a 1-0 lead.
Just 16 seconds after that, Tom Richter finished with his first goal as a Vee on a two-on-one with Ryan Upson to see Penticton jump ahead by a 2-0 score. Upson dragged past a defender on the right wing as he slid a pass on his backhand to the blocker side where Richter was racing to and chipped it over the shoulder of Hamming for his 1st of the season at the 5:17 mark to push the Vees ahead by a pair.
Ryan McGuire increased the Vees lead to three goals at the 10:26 mark of the opening frame.
Penticton capped off their scoring frenzy in the opening frame with Jacob Quillan scoring in his second straight game to push the Vees lead to 4-0. Liam Malmquist centered from the right-wing side and pushed a puck to the slot where Quillan gathered and snapped a shot past the glove side of Hamming for his 3rd goal of the season and a four-goal Vees lead heading into the middle stanza.
Kaleb McEachern made his first start in the BC Hockey League, turning aside each of the 13 shots he faced in the opening two periods while Cayden Hamming stopped 24 of the 28 shots thrown his way in his 40 minutes of action.
Luc Wilson capped off the Vees scoring at the 11:22 mark of the 3rd period on a 5-on-3 power play advantage.
Kaleb McEachern turned aside 20 of the 21 shots he faced in his 1st win as a Vee and in the BCHL while Cayden Hamming stopped 34 of the 40 shots thrown his way in his 3rd loss of the season.
The Vees (5-0-0-0) look to extend their winning streak to six games as they face-off against the Cranbrook Bucks (1-4-0-0-) on Monday night.
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