PEORIA, IL — A second dominating performance on Sunday evening put the Pensacola Ice Flyers just one win away from the SPHL President’s Cup.
With a 3-2 victory in Game 2, the Ice Flyers sweep a pair of games from Peoria on the road. The 1861 fans in attendance saw Peoria flustered by a stingy Pensacola defense.
The teams traded goals in the first period.
Rivermen Benjamin Rubin made a great pass through traffic to find a wide-open Dave Pszenczny. Pensacla goaltender Matt Zenzola was screened and Pszenczny hit the net to open the scoring at 10:11 of period.
Steve Bergin evened it up just over 90 seconds later on a wrister that beat Peoria goaltender Kyle Rank to even the score at one-all.
It was all Pensacola in the second period. Joe Caveney scored at 7:04 of the second period to put the Ice Flyers on top, 2-0.
Stephen Buco ended Kyle Rank’s night at 15:25 in the second period when he took a pass from Adam Pawlick off the faceoff in the high slot. His shot hit the crossbar and bounced in for a 3-1 lead and brought out Rivermen backup netminder David Jacobson.
In the third period, the Rivermen were able to come back to within one during a power play.
After being frustrated for most of the game with the man advantage, Peoria set up and passed and passed and passed some more. Finally, Chris Wilson found Connor Toomey on the doorstep. Toomey’s one-timer made it a game again at 5:02 of the period, cutting the visitors lead to 3-2.
Pensacola went 0-6 on the power play. Peoria had the one goal in five chances, although some of those chances were greatly abbreviated.
Rank takes the loss stopping 16 of 19 shots. Jacobson stopped all four shots he faced. Zenzola was fantastic again, stopping 21 of 23 shots.
There series moves to Pensacola on Thursday and Friday, where the Rivermen must win both to bring the series back to Peoria.
You may contact the author at Shaun.Bill@ProHockeyNews.com or follow him on Twitter @SLBatPHN .
You must be logged in to post a comment.