NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The last time the Orlando Solar Bears took on the South Carolina Stingrays, the Solar Bears were about to fire head coach Anthony Noreen and replace him with former coach Drake Berehowsky. In the span of time in between, Orlando has played pretty well and put itself in playoff position.
Sunday afternoon at the North Charleston Coliseum, the Solar Bears found out that the Stingrays are just as tough as they were back in November.
Andrew Cherniwchan scored the go-ahead goal midway through the third period and goalie Adam Carlson stopped 25 of the 27 shots he faced as the Stingrays (26-20-2-1, 55 points) edged the visiting Solar Bears (24-18-5-2, 55 points) 3-2 in front of an announced crowd of 3,450. The win allowed South Carolina to leapfrog Orlando into third place in the South division standings based on a tie-breaker.
The opening period of the contest was a duel between Carlson and Orlando’s Ryan Massa, both of whom played well throughout the game. Although neither was called on to make any spectacular saves, they did what they had to do to keep the opposition off the board.
There was just one goal in the first period, that belonging to South Carolina. It came with 39 seconds left in the frame when the Stingrays broke out on an odd-man rush. Carrying the puck into the Orlando end, Rob Flick used Cherniwchan as a decoy and dropped a pass to Domenic Monardo. Monardo let loose with a hard shot that beat Massa on the blocker glove side for Monardo’s seventh of the season.
The Solar Bears evened the score 1:41 into the middle stanza with some smooth transition play. Defenseman Kyle Shapiro sent a stretch pass to Chris Crane who busted out with Patrick Watling on a two-on-none break. Crane drew Carlson to his side before laying a pass to Watling who one-timed a drive into the back of the net for Watling’s tenth goal of the year.
The defenses and goaltending took over for the remaining 18:19 of the period as neigher Massa nor Carlson were willing to give anything else up. Both offenses had multiple power play opportunities but neither team took advantage and the teams headed to the third period knotted at 1-1.
Shortly after the Solar Bears killed off the remaining time on a carry-over penalty, South Carolina regained the lead when Kelly Zajac set up John Parker for a shot at the Orlando net. Patrick Gaul was in the right place to redirect the puck past Massa for his eighth goal of the year.
Another Solar Bears penalty gave the Stingrays a chance to build on their lead but it was Orlando that cashed in. During the penalty kill, Watling got loose and busted into the South Carolina defensive end and headed straight for the net. Carlson made three consecutive saves before Brenden Miller followed in and lifted the puck over the sprawled goalie for his eighth of the season at 3:40.
A pair of overlapping penalties created a four-on-four situation midway through the period. It led to defenseman Colton Saucerman feeding the puck from down low to the point where Cherniwchan nailed a one-time blast that hit the top right corner of the net for Cherniwchan’s fifth of the season.
The Solar Bears still had almost half of the final frame to try to come up with the tying score but Carlson and the Stingrays defense held on, keeping Orlando at bay. The Solar Bears pulled Massa with just over a minute to go but could not get really good opportunity to score.
Notes: Massa finished the game with 23 saves on 26 shots… Neither team connected on the power play as Orlando went 0-for-6 while South Carolina ended up 0-for-7… Orlando played with five defenseman as Eric Baier sat out Sunday’s contest… Veteran forward Chad LasRose was put on reserve before the game… Orlando will finish its five game road trip Wednesday night in Estero against the Florida Everblades.
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