NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The Greenville Road Warriors (22-6-1-1) took their second straight game this week from the South Carolina Stingrays (15-14-1-1) Wednesday night before 3,137 fans at the North Charleston Coliseum with a 4-3 shootout win. Greenville forward Justin Bowers and ‘Rays’ veteran Trent Campbell each scored twice in the game.
The ‘Rays displayed resilience in the game against the Road Warriors who lead the entire ECHL in wins and in the league wide standings. The locals came back from a two goal first period deficit to eventually take a 3-2 lead but were unable to hold on. Greenville jumped out to a two goal lead early in period one when forward Justin Bowers beat ‘Rays’ goalie Todd Ford with a shot just above ice level from the left side faceoff circle. Jimmy Kilpatrick and Wes Cunningham drew assists on Bowers’ goal 11th of the season which was the only power play goal on the night.
The outcome looked bleaker for the ‘Rays’ when the Road Warriors extended their lead to 2-0 midway in the period. This time forward Chris McKelvie and defenseman Trevor Glass combined to setup forward Sean Berkstresser at the 13:28 mark. The lead 2-0 held up going into the first intermission.
Perhaps it was a carryover from the physical game on Monday which featured two third period fights between the two teams or the potential embarrassment to the ‘Rays who have been playing better of late but South Carolina stepped up the level of physical play in period two and had built a 3-2 lead when the second intermission horn sounded
First, defenseman Josh Godfrey got his ninth goal of the season an unassisted beauty just one minute twenty into the second period. His blistering shot eluded Greenville goalie Dov Grumet-Morris from just inside the blue line. Less than a minute later Campbell got the first of his two goals. A prone Grumet-Morris tried to stack his pads to make the stop but Campbell flipped the puck up and over the sprawling net minder. Defenseman Bryan Schmidt and forward David de Kastrozza got the helpers.
Campbell struck again with the help of forwards Rob Ricci and Tommy Goebel at 12:42 for a 3-3 lead. Goebel, Ricci and Campbell played tic-tac-toe with Campbell getting his fifth goal of the season. Campbell’s game was not limited to offense tonight. He handed out a number of hard body checks including two clean hits which sent two Road Warriors off the ice for repairs. (INSERT PICTURE OF CAMPBELL)
Greenville is however, the best team in the ECHL right now and they responded as good teams will by continuing to press. It paid off when Bowers got his second goal and 12th of the season from a shot that hit a ‘Rays’ defenseman and deflected past Ford. The goal at 8:36 tied the game at 3-3 with Mark Voakes and Kilpatrick picking up points on assists.
Neither team could break the tie in the remainder of regulation or in overtime. The Stingrays carried the play in the extra five minutes of overtime launching eight shots at Grumet-Morris but he stopped them all. Greenville was held without a shot in O/T. On the night Grumet-Morris made 35 saves on the 38 shots he faced while Ford stopped 26 of 29 shots on goal against him.
Voakes, Brandon Wong and Mark Olivier Vallerand scored in the shootout for the 4-3 win. Grumet-Morris stopped all but de Kastrozza and Campbell in the five round shootout. The Warriors Stingray’s finish their three game series New Years’ Eve in North Charleston with a 7:05 face-off.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.