The Tri-City Americans avoid an inconvenient Easter Sunday game by clinching a sweep over the Kelowna Rockets to advance in the WHL playoffs Thursday night.

The Americans won 5-3 over the division champions to move on to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2012, according to reports.

If the Americans did not win both home games this week, they would have had a game Easter Sunday. Now they get the holiday off to rest up.

It is also the fist time since 2012 that Kelowna had been knocked out of the playoffs.

The Americans have to wait to find out who they will play in the 2nd round because none of the other series have been decided.

More From 97.1 KXRX