Trail, BC (March 7,2025) – Despite a heroic performance from goaltender Zach Zahara, who made a pair of highlight reel glove saves, the Brooks Bandits fell 4-1 to the Trail Smoke Eaters on Friday at Cominco Arena.
Zahara stopped 22 of the 26 shots he faced, as the game went over two periods without a goal after a 3-1 1st period.
In the opening frame, the Bandits were stunned by an early push as Jack Kennedy of the Smoke Eaters fired a point shot that Zahara couldn’t find through traffic to go up 1-0 just over three minutes in. Just over five minutes later, Jace Letourneau turned the puck over on a zone entry on the powerplay to send Ridge Dawson on the breakaway and he made no mistake shooting short side over the blocker of Zach Zahara to double up Trails lead to 2-0. 14 minutes into the game, Parker Lalonde called his own number and beat out two Trail defenders driving wide and tucked the puck past Ryan Parker to cut the lead in half. Just 23 seconds later the Smoke Eaters took off on a 2 on1 as Brayden Sinclair went backhand and it was stopped by Zahara but he couldn’t cover the puck as Gryphon Bucci tucked home the loose puck to extend the lead to 3-1 in favour of Trail.
The 2nd period had no scoring as the Bandits had the slight edge in shots as it was six to five in the period.
In the third period, it remained 3-1 until Trail closed out the game with an empty net goal to make it 4-1 to win as they defeated the Brooks Bandits for the first time this season.
The Bandits continue their road trip on Saturday, March 8th when they visit the West Kelowna Warriors. Game time is 7:00 Pacific.
