NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – The South Carolina Stingrays returned home early Monday morning concluding a successful road trip with wins at Gwinnett on Saturday night and again on Sunday afternoon. The wins came after they lost the opening game of the three-game road trip to Greenville on Friday night. After Friday night’s 3-0 shutout, the ‘Rays bounced back first claiming a 3-1 regulation win on Saturday and then grabbing a 3-2 shootout victory on Sunday to take two games from the Gladiators. Saturday’s win was the ‘Rays’ first win after five straight losses on the road. The four points earned this weekend gives South Carolina (14-9-0-1) 29 points and a tenuous hold on first place in the South Division of the ECHL Eastern Conference. All South Division teams are locked in a close battle for the Division lead. Gwinnet (10-8-5-3) 28 points, Greenville (13-8-0-0) 26 points and Florida (12-11-1-1) 26 points are just behind South Carolina. However, Greenville has played three fewer games than South Carolina and five fewer than Gwinnett. Road Warrior goal tender Jason Missiaen stopped all 38 shots he faced on Friday night at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, South Carolina. He bested ‘Rays’ rookie goalie Philipp Grubauer who faced 30 shots between the pipes. Kale Kerbashian opened Greenville’s scoring at the 9:02 mark of the first period. ECHL tough man T.J. Reynolds and Brendon Wong were credited with assists on what turned out to be the game winner. Brendan Connolly followed up and ran the lead to 2-0 with his 14 goal of the season, in the same period at 15:20. Marc-Olivier Vallerand picked up the lone assist on the Gladiators second marker. Vallerand came back and sealed the game with a goal of his own at 9:19 of the second period, to close out the scoring. Meanwhile on defense, the Road Warriors frustrated South Carolina with six straight penalty kills. The Gladiators power play was also nonexistent as they squandered five power play opportunities of their own. South Carolina’s rookie goal tender Grubauer bounced back Saturday night, allowing just one goal, as the ‘Rays scored three times in period one and never looked back for a 3-1 victory. A big crowd of 9,059 at the Gwinnett Center had hope early, as the Gladiators jumped out to a 1-0 lead on a goal from a rebound by forward Chris Clackson. Former Stingrays’ forward Nikita Kashirsky and Pat Galivan got the helpers on the Clackson goal. Just over five minutes later, Pierre-Luc O’Brien, the ‘Rays’ leading scorer, got his tenth goal of the season to tie the game 1-1. His unassisted strike was followed less than thirty seconds later, at 13:12, when Greg Stewart swept a pass from defenseman Zach Tarkir past losing net minder Marc Cheverie for a 2-1 South Carolina lead. Forward Sean Doan got the secondary assist on the 0’Brien goal. David de Kastrozza and Matt Scherer combined at 16:44 for the third straight goal by the visitors and the final 3-1 game score. The de Kastrozza goal came on a slap shot when he one timed the pass from Scherer that set him up perfectly. Cheverie faced 31 shots on goal, while his team launched 25 shots at Grubauer. Both teams were unable to score on the power play with South Carolina getting shutout on one power play, while the Stingrays killed five Gladiator opportunities. The two teams staged an intense rematch in an afternoon matinee affair on Sunday that required the heroics of goal tender Darren Machesney, who made 22 saves and Zach Tarkir, who got the game winner in the sixth round of a shootout, to give the visitors a 3-2 overtime edge. A crowd of 5,043 saw the home team score quickly, as Joey Haddad, beat Machesney on his blocker side, with helpers from Tyler Murovich and defenseman Dallas Jackson. Haddad’s tenth goal of the season, came at the 0:17 as the crowd was still settling into the arena. The 1-0 lead held until 14:58 when forward Nick Tabisz knotted the score 1-1 banging home a rebound past Gladiators goaltender Jeff Jakaitis at 14:58. A single assist on the Tabisz score went to Sean Dolan. The teams then settled down and played a scoreless second period and were over half way through the third stanza without scoring, before Trent Campbell wristed a shot past Jakaitis at the 11:34 mark. O’Brien picked up his team high 18 point (10g-8a) among active roster players with the assist. Gwinnett sent the game into overtime, as Coin Vock responded to tie the game 2-2 with just 3:41 left in regulation. Shane Sims and former Stingrays’ player Justin Milo got assists on the tying goal. Gwinnet dominated the extra five minutes, outshooting the ‘Rays 5-1, but Machesney stopped them all, as his counterpart Jakaitis saw only one shot in extra time, even though the Stingrays had almost a full power play to start the extra stanza. The ‘Rays continued to suffer a power outage, going 0-6, with the man advantage. Gwinnett did not fare any better,as they failed to score in five opportunities. Overall South Carolina failed to score a goal in the 13 power play chances they had over the weekend. To their credit however, special teams did kill off all 15 power play chances by their two opponents over the three games. Campbell and Tarkir scored for South Carolina in the shootout with Tarkir getting the game winner. Andy Brandt had the lone Gladiators score in the shootout round. The Gladiators and Rays will continue the action this coming weekend this time on South Carolina ice. Gwinnett comes to the North Charleston Coliseum for games on Friday and Saturday nights and the ‘Rays will host Greenville in a Sunday afternoon affair. Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.