Americans get best of Brahmas, again

ALLEN, Texas – The Central Hockey League loves its rivalries and with the arrival of the Allen Americans to the DFW Metroplex last season, they got a real good one that’s just building steam.
The two team’s are less than an hour’s drive between arena’s, so fans of both teams can journey to the watch their team’s at home and on the road easily.
 
Friday night saw the final regular season meeting between the two clubs and what a wild one it was on the score sheet.
The red lights saw quite a workout when a total of 15 pucks found their way to the back of the twine as the Americans defeated the Brahma’s in a barn burner, 9-6 to finish the season 8-2 against their cross-town rivals.
 
The Americans jumped to an immediate lead just 35 seconds into the opening frame when Central Hockey League MVP Nominee Colton Yellow Horn lifted a rebound over a sprawling Wayne Savage. The goal quickly stunned the normally loud NYTEX Sports Center crowd to a brief silence as well as the Brahma’s themselves, but they quickly regrouped and went on the attack.
 
The Americans looked out of sorts a bit early on defensively, although keeping them to a low number of shots on the net in the first, nearly all of them were quality scoring tries.
The Brahma’s responded to Yellow Horn’s quick opening goal with a pair of their own by the six minute mark to give them a 2-1 lead.
 
As the period wore on the Americans started to pick up steam and with 25 ticks left on the clock, Nino Musitelli notched his first of the night, rocketing one from the left circle to bring the game level at the end of one.
 
The Brahma’s tallied twice more in the first eight minutes of the second period to jump out to a two goal lead and the Americans answered once to bring the game back to within one at 4-3, but a couple of minutes later the Brahma’s once again extended their lead to two goals.
The Americans once agin, looked out of sorts defensively, collapsing a bit too quickly and missing assignments, which allowed the Brahmas to tally three times on only six shots in the period.
 
The Americans never lost their poise however; confident in their offensive capabilities, they waited until the last half of the period to go into full assault mode offensively.
Launching 16 shots at Wayne Savage in the Brahmas net and capitalizing twice on the man-advantage, by periods end the game was tilted in the Americans favor, 6-5.
 
The third period saw the Americans get out shot for the first time as the Brahma’s put half of their total shots for the game on the Americans net. Texas fired 13 times and all but one was turned away by Chris Whitley, who looked better as the game wore on, as did the Americans defensively.
Allen was able to pick up three more tallies, including an empty-netter to finish the Brahmas off 9-6 with 1:50 remaining in regulation.
 
The Americans will be home for a pair of games this weekend, Saturday night against Wichita and Sunday afternoon they face off against Bloomington.
Allen now only needs one point to secure the Berry Conference and four points to secure the Central Hockey League’s regular season title and the much desired home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.
  Contact the writer at maurice.fitzgerald@prohockeynews.com