VANCOUVER, British Columbia – With mirroring records coupled with a pair of down-to-the-wire regular-season meetings, the first- round Western Hockey League playoff matchup between the Spokane Chiefs and Vancouver Giants was almost destined to be a low-scoring dogfight. Game 1 of the best-of-7 series turned out to be the exact opposite. At least on the low-scoring end.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Fredy Montero scored two goals in a 4-minute span to lead the Seattle Sounders to a 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday night. Brad Evans also scored as Seattle (15-6-9) clinched a playoff spot and won the Cascadia Cup title – a competition between northwest teams Vancouver, Portland and the Sounders.

With a big assist from starter Justin Nicolino, the Vancouver Canadians and Spokane Indians cleaned up their Northwest League baseball act considerably on Saturday night. Less than 24 hours after Vancouver disposed of Spokane in a raggedly played slugfest on Friday night, Nicolino put together a masterful five-inning starting stint to lead the Canadians to a 2-1 win over the Indians in front of an Avista Stadium crowd of 4,879.

Forget the fact that the starting pitchers, both considered to be the ace on their respective staffs, came in with a combined earned-run average of less than 4.00. Anyone hoping to witness a tidy, 2 ½-hour pitchers’ duel at Avista Stadium went home Friday night deeply disappointed following visiting Vancouver’s messy 9-7 Northwest League baseball win over the Spokane Indians.