Wenatchee Wild Drop BCHL Playoff Opener in Salmon Arm

By Arch Ecker
Wenatchee Wild

The 7th seed Wenatchee Wild opened their first-round playoff series on Saturday night at the Shaw Centre in Salmon Arm, BC against the 2nd seed Silverbacks and dropped a 6-3 contest to fall behind 1-0 in the best-of-seven series.

The Wild opened strong, and were rewarded with a Quinn Emerson power play goal at 9:06 of the first, assisted by Ean Somoza and Mario Gasparini. Wenatchee went up 2-0 when Cade Littler tapped home a rebound at 7:09 of the second period, assisted by David Hejduk. Then the tide started to turn.

Salmon Arm got on the board at 8:52, then tied it up on a power play at 12:46. Two minutes later, the Silverbacks had taken a 3-2 lead. A high sticking call put Wenatchee on the power play :17 seconds later, and Ean Somoza drilled a wrister high stick side on the rush to knot the game at 3-3. Answering in kind, a Salmon Arm power play goal put the Silverbacks up 4-3 late in the second.

Salmon Arm would add two more in the final frame to post a 6-3 win. Tyler Shea stopped 32 of 38 shots, and each side went 2-for-4 on the power play.

Wild Head Coach Chris Clark summed up the night after the game, saying, “I thought that was a game of two halves. The first half we played very well and were rewarded for that strong play. The second half we didn’t do a good job taking care of the puck and took some bad penalties that Salmon Arm took advantage of. We will need to clean those areas up and continue with the good from the first 30 for a full 60 tomorrow.”

Wenatchee continues their best-of-seven playoff series in Salmon Arm with Game 2 on Sunday April 3 at 5pm PDT. The series returns to Wenatchee on Tuesday and Wednesday for Games 3 and 4. Live radio coverage will be available on NewsRadio 560 KPQ with video available at bchltv.ca. Arch Ecker provides the play-by-play on KPQ.