One down, three to go.

The Portage Islanders jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the South Eastern Manitoba Hockey League's best-of-seven Championship Final. They defeated the Notre Dame Hawks 5-2 in Game 1 in Notre Dame.

"It's obviously really nice to get the series started with a win," says Islanders' Captain Anders Strome. "They came out hard and I thought we weathered the storm early and turned it around and picked up the pace in the second and third, and played our game."

The Hawks opened the scoring in the series. Mitch Chanel scored with 7:26 remaining in the first to gain the early lead. It was all Portage after that. Their continued assault led to an Eric DeLong goal with eight seconds to go in the period.

Portage came out strong in the second and it led to three goals in the middle 20 minutes. Both Waldvogels found the back of the net. Zack scored first on the powerplay to make it 2-1, Tanner followed it up with an even strength marker a short while later. Captain Anders Strome would add one more with five minutes to go in the second and they took a 4-1 lead into the final 20 minutes. Delong added two assists in the period. Portage's Dan Leslie was ejected in the second period for apparently bumping an official, there's no word if he'll face extra discipline.

"It was a great way to start the series," says Tanner Waldvogel. "It's always nice to steal points in the other team's rink. I thought we had a good effort."

"My game winner was more of a DeLong goal than mine," laughs Waldvogel. "He made a hell of a play and the puck was just bouncing around and I was lucky to get a piece of it and it trickled into the net. I'll take it, though."

The Hawks managed to cut the Islanders' lead to 2 in the third. Justin Dalebozik found the back of the net four minutes into the final frame. The Islanders would add an empty net goal to make it 5-2 Portage with barely any time remaining. Anders Strome slid it into the empty net.

The Islanders can take a 2-0 series lead with a win in Game 2 Thursday night in Portage. The puck drops at 8:15 at Stride Place.

"They've got a lot of speed and they work really hard," adds Strome. "At the end of the day, we need to work hard and play responsible hockey at both ends of the ice. Bear down on our chances and put forth the same effort."