Game two in the battle of the birds goes to the Eagles

LOVELAND, Colo. – Game two of the Turner Conference quarter finals between Colorado and Quad City played out much like the previous game, where one team dominated early yet the other team came back to win in overtime. Quad City took an early 2–1 lead and extend it to a 4-2 lead before Colorado was able to score three unanswered goals including the game winner in overtime to get the win.

Quad City scored the first goal at 5:20 of the opening period on a power play chance when Adam Maccarone wired a shot past Eagles netminder Kyle Jones. Five minutes later, Joel Gaspar would knock in Jake Riddle’s rebound for the second Quad City goal.
Colorado got one back at 11:14 when Daymen Rycroft potted a goal with assists from Kevin Ulanski and league MVP Riley Nelson, bringing the Eagles within one.
An early second period goal by Mallard Eric Giosa at 2:33 sent Kyle Jones to the bench and Andrew Penner took over in the Eagle’s net.
“It’s never easy going in cold like that but you do the best you can,” Penner said. “It (the goal tending change) was more a momentum thing – we just needed something to change and unfortunately Kyle Jones was battling but they just got some good goals scored on him.”
An Eagles power play goal by Riley Nelson at 15:14 of the second period and Zach Pearson’s score at 18:30 gave the Mallards a 4-2 lead heading into the final frame.
Riley Nelson struck again at 1:57 of third to cut the deficit to 4-3 and three minutes later Joe Grimaldi blasted a shot past David Brown in goal for the Mallards to tie the game at four all.
“I stepped up on a forward, he got passed me and caused an odd man rush, but one of our captains, Aaron Schneekloth, stopped them on the 2-on-1 and gave me a chance to get the puck.” Grimaldi said. “I skated hard as I could to the red line – all I could think about was Greg Pankewicz saying to just shoot the frigging puck and I just let it rip – it had some speed on it so I caught him (Brown) and scored.”
The remainder of the third period saw Penner continue to play well and keep his net clean. His counterpart Brown did the same on the other end despite both teams’ desperation to get the game winner before another overtime was needed.
With nothing decided through sixty minutes of regulation play as with the previous game, it did not take long for the game winning goal to be scored in the overtime period. With a mere 62 seconds gone off the clock Daymen Rycroft, one of the most tenacious forwards on the Eagles’ squad, got a put back of his own shot to tally the overtime game winner.
“Getting an emotional win like this, you can really see the morale of this team; it shows the character of these guys,” Rycroft said. “We’ve bounced back many times this year and there was no doubt in this room that we could do it again.”
The Eagles and the Mallards have left for the trip to Moline, Illinois for games three and four of the best-of-five series on Tuesday, April 5th and Wednesday, April 6th. If need be, they will return to Colorado for game five on April 9th.
Contact the writer/photographer at terry.sanford@prohockeynews.com