Luke Posthumus had two goals and Max Heise scored his team-leading 15th of the season as the Penticton Vees cruised to a 5-2 win over the West 91大黄鸭 Warriors at the South Okanagan Events Centre on Friday, Dec. 13.
Louie Wehmann and Landon Wright also scored for Penticton (21-6-0-0), which has won six in a row and 10 out of its last 11 games.
Vees goaltender Will Ingemann made 8 out of his 16 saves in the second period and picked up his 13th win of the season.
Jackson Kyrkostas and Sam LeDrew notched markers for West 91大黄鸭 (9-12-5-2), which has lost six out of its last seven games and sits in the bottom echelon of the Interior Conference.
Jack Lisson made 21 saves for the Warriors.
The Vees, who are tied with the Brooks Bandits atop the Interior Conference standings, welcomed Conyr Hellyer back to their lineup on Friday after the BCHL all-star missed the last four games with an upper-body injury. Hellyer had two assists in his return.
Penticton and West 91大黄鸭 meet again on Saturday, Dec. 14, to wrap up the home-and-home Highway 97 rivalry series. It will mark the last game before the BCHL Christmas break for both clubs.
The Warriors jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period on Friday, with Kyrkostas scoring his sixth of the season at 11:55 of the opening frame.
It would prove to be West 91大黄鸭's only lead of the night as Penticton used two second-period markers from Posthumus to take a 2-1 lead heading into the final frame. The rookie forward has scored six goals during his active five-game point streak.
Wehmann and Heise scored in succession early in the third, within a span of two minutes, to help Penticton pull away from its Okanagan rivals.
Vees forward Ryden Evers, who had two assists on Friday, threw a cross-ice pass from the side of the net over to Heise, who buried a one-timer to make it 4-1. It marked the forward's 15th of the season, good enough for seventh on the league's scoring list this season.
LeDrew would then score his 11th of the campaign for the Warriors, before Wright capped off the game's scoring with a breakaway goal at 9:38 of the third period.
