NORTH CHARLESTON, NC – The South Carolina Stingrays’ (35-24-7)-77 points must have thought this past weekend was a replay of the previous one. Their luck against the Greenville Road Warriors continued tough as they lost another shootout game to Greenville just like last weekend. In a similar replay however they bounced back against the foe they beat last weekend and grabbed a 4-2 win in Saturday’s contest from the Cincinnati Cyclones.
The Road Warriors continued their season long mastery of the “Rays with their second straight 3-2 shootout win Friday. It was the ‘Rays’ 11th loss of the season to their South Carolina neighbors. In 13 meetings the ‘Rays have managed just two wins, lost six times in regulation time, dropped two in overtime and have been beaten three times in shoot outs.
The latest loss came at the North Charleston Coliseum where once again Greenville beat Billy Sauer in goal who also absorbed the previous shoot out loss to Greenville last weekend at home. It must have seemed very familiar to Sauer and local fans as Sauer played extremely well but was beaten despite another outstanding effort.
In Friday’s contest he swept aside 37 shots on goal and forced the Road Warriors to go nine rounds in the shootout before giving up the game winner to Francis Meilleur. His counterpart, Greenville goalie Jason Missiaen, gave up a first round shootout goal to Trent Campbell but stoned walled the other eight shooters to pick up the win. On the night Missiaen stopped 27 of 29 shots.
Forward Billy Ryan who came back last weekend after a long stint on the injured reserve list scored the two regulation time goals for South Carolina in the loss. The forward had missed 50 games after an early season injury. Ryan’s second goal of the game and seventh of the season came on a power play at the 17:25 mark of the third period. That score looked to be the game winner as he gave the ‘Rays a 2-1 lead by blistering a shot from the slot past Missiaen. The lead however evaporated just over a minute later. Road Warriors’ forward Kale Kerbashian half whiffed on a shot off a rebound that floated past Sauer with just over 1:30 left in regulation for the 2-2 tie.
Earlier Ryan had scored his sixth of the season in the second period to break a scoreless tie. That goal was answered late in the same period when Tim Coffman earned a 1-1 tie for Greenville at 18:34 to set up the late third period scoring flurry that sent the game into overtime and eventually into the shootout.
The Stingrays and Road Warriors will match up three more times in the final seven games of the season playing twice in Greenville and closing out the 2011-12 home season for the ‘Rays in North Charleston.
On Saturday night, Cincinnati completed the seventh game of an eight game road trip playing a second straight weekend game in the low country. They hoped to avenge a loss here last Sunday but South Carolina jumped out to a 3-0 lead and ended up on the best end of a 4-2 score.
The game closed out a six game home stand for the ‘Rays as a crowd of 4,906 showed up to help the home team honor the Military at their annual Military Appreciation night. They big crowd was appreciative of the effort that saw Sauer stop 34 of 36 shots in goal to record the win. Brian Foster took the loss in net for Cincinnati allowing four goals on just 21 shots.
Phil Oreskovic, Josh Turnbull, Derek Keller and Tyler Shelast got singles for South Carolina while Maury Edwards and Matt Carter got the Cyclones’ strikes. Shelast and Oreskovic also picked up assists. They joined team captain Matt Scherer who had two assists with two points in the match. Keller’s goal was the lone power play score for South Carolina in four chances. Cincinnati was able to cash in once on six power plays on the Edwards’ goal.
The ‘Rays travel to Florida and play three straight against the Florida EverBlades commencing this coming Wednesday night at Germain Arena.
The series will have a big impact on which team will finish ahead of the other in the final standings. Florida 33-25-7 73 points currently is in seventh place in the ECHL’s Eastern Conference trailing the sixth place ‘Rays by just four points.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
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