Allen evens Kelly Cup Finals with 5-2 win over South Carolina

ALLEN, Texas – The Allen Americans evened the ECHL Kelly Cup Finals at one game apiece by downing the South Carolina Stingrays in a strong 5-2 effort Tuesday night. The teams will play one more game in Allen before heading to South Carolina for the next three games; each team will play as the home team once in their respective arenas.

Allen netted the only goal of the opening period when Dyson Stevenson swatted his own rebound past Jeff Jakaitis at the 6:05 mark for his second goal of the playoffs. It was a tightly played first period with the low shot count of 8-7 in favor of the Rays, but each team did manage several quality scoring chances in the first 20-minutes of play.

The Americans extended their lead to three goals in the second period with a pair of goals from Gary Steffes, his 11^th and 12^th of the postseason, including a power play goal in the final seconds of the frame. Allen has been deadly on the power play, going two-for-three on the night and three-for-six in the first two games. Meanwhile, the Stingrays have had a tough go against the Americans penalty kill unit, failing to tally a goal in five opportunities through the first two games of the series.

South Carolina finally broke the shutout just 1:48 into the third period when Scott Ford fired a shot from the point past Riley Gill, giving South Carolina a ray of hope. Spencer Asuchak dashed those hopes just three minutes later with his 11^th goal of the playoffs, giving the Americans back their three goal lead at 4-1. Near the midway point of the period, South Carolina looked to be back in it when Sean Dolan made a nice move on a broken play, sliding the puck past Gill at 9:40. The Rays continued to press the attack but couldn’t penetrate a staunch Allen defense through the remainder of regulation and in the final seconds of the game , Konrad Abeltshauser was able to hit the empty net to cap the scoring for Allen at 5-2, bringing the series even at 1-1.