The Miller Aces are one win away from capturing their first Zone 4 High School Hockey League championship banner since the 1985-86 season.

Andrew Dyck scored the go-ahead goal with three minutes left in the third period and Kirby Sawatzky added an empty-netter with 12 seconds remaining on the clock as the Aces defeated the Morden Thunder 5-3 Monday night in Altona in game one of the best-of-three final.

"We just battled really hard," said Miller forward Braden Hildebrand who had two goals and an assist in his first game of the playoffs after missing the first four with an upper-body injury. "Morden played good but we stuck with our game even when they came back. It paid off in the end when we got that scramble in front of the net and banked it in."

Colton Harder also scored for the Aces who enjoyed a 3-0 lead until Cameron Brunn got the Thunder on the board with a power play goal late in the second period.

Mitch Penner and Zach Wood then scored 59 second apart early in the third to tie the game at 3-3.

Both teams had chances to take the lead but no one could find the back of the net until Dyck banged the loose puck past Morden netminder Owen Domitruk who faced 39 shots in the series opener.

"We didn't really come out in the first 40 minutes," said Morden captain Evan Wuerch. "Our goalie kept us in the game. We battled back in the third period and it kind of just slipped away from us."

Miller goaltender Declan Enns made 17 saves in game one.

"It's nice to win in a way like that when you have to deal with a little bit of adversity in the third period," said Aces coach Rob Smith who watched his hockey team improve to 5-0 in the post-season. "I think that's something our guys have shown throughout the year and the tournaments we've played. Even in the first two rounds - game two was tied against Garden Valley on the road in the first series and Pembina gave us a heck of a game in game two in Manitou. I really liked the way our guys dealt with it."

Game two goes Thursday (7:30 p.m.) in Morden.

The defending champion Thunder also lost game one of their semifinal with the Morris Mavericks before winning back-to-back elimination games to keep their season alive.

"We're going to focus on just keeping things in perspective," Morden coach Jeff Andrews said shortly after game one was over. "We don't want to put the cart before the horse. We want to make sure we start with some real good shifts, get working the way we need to early and build the momentum we need to play the rest of the game the way we want to."