BINGHAMTON, NY – With their opponents on the ropes late in the third attempting to protect a precarious one-goal lead, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms were simply unable to obtain a dramatic equalizer. Host Binghamton converted on a pair of late empty-netters on their way to a deceptive 4-1 final margin.
The Senators scrambles, dove and blocked their way through much of the third period in ultimately successful efforts to protect their lead as well as winning goalie Peter Mannino. 
Goaltender Rob Zepp played well for the first two periods for Lehigh Valley but left the game with an apparent injury early in the third on a hard collision with Binghamton’s Matt Puempel who was shoved from behind by Phantoms defenseman Steven Delisle. Anthony Stolarz did not allow a goal the rest of the way on the five shots he faced.
For the second game in a row, Jason Akeson staked Lehigh Valley to an early 1-0 lead. He converted for his 11th of the season at 5:08 into the game on a chip in the crease to an empty-net. Mannino coming to his right was unable to cover a Taylor Leier shot from the left-wing and Andrew Gordon was right there for the rebound and centering pass to Akeson who extended his goal-scoring streak to three games equaling his longest of the season.
Akeson is now all alone for eighth all-time in Phantoms’ history in goals scored with his 69th passing Craig Darby and Jared Ross who had 68 lamplighters in their careers with the team. With his 196th career point in a Phantoms’ sweater, Akeson is now four away from joining just four other players in the Phantoms 200-Point Club (Peter White, Mark Greig, John Slaney, Kirby Law).
The Phantoms lead would be short-lived however. Just 42 seconds later, Shane Prince would strike after an Alex Grant slapper from the point would create an opportunity. The team-leading 16th of the year for Prince at 5:50 evened the score at 1-1.
The bad blood with the Phantoms and Senators got started fairly early. The first of three total fights in the contest featured Derek Mathers and Guillaume Lepine squaring off for the second time this year. Mathers would later drop the gloves with Darren Kramer in the second period. And Austin Fyten had a good bout with Max McCormick.
Late in the second period, Nick Cousins narrowly missed breaking the 1-1 deadlock but his right-wing drive off Mannino back out to him provided a fairly narrow angle behind the out-of-position Senators’ goalie and Cousins missed wide. Binghamton jumped on the opportunity and turned that into a 2-on-1 back the other way with Shane Prince muscling a backhander from the right circle to Cole Schneider in the slot who converted on his 14th of the season past Zepp.
After Stolarz replaced the injured Zepp in the third period, the Phantoms were able to put together several good entries into the B-Sens zone. But one block after another hampered Lehigh Valley’s comeback efforts.
Having pulled Stolarz with two minutes remaining, Carter Camper lifted a backhander from the red-line right between both benches that somehow landed perfectly into the empty-net with 1:48 left. The somewhat fortunate tally to make it 3-1 denied the Phantoms over 100 seconds of potential continued pressure in the Binghamton zone just when they seemed to have the Senators at their breaking point. Buddy Robinson would tack on another empty-net lamplighter 30 seconds later to provide the 4-1 final.
Lehigh Valley is 3-3 against the Senators this year. This game was the fourth of five visits to the Southern Tier for the Phantoms who make one final trek to Binghamton on April 2. Binghamton outshot the Phantoms 32-30. Lehigh Valley was 0-for-5 on the power play while Binghamton went 0-for-3.
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