| KNOXVILLE, TENN. – And then there was one. Bobby Joe Pelkey scored his third goal of the game at 11:52 of overtime to give the Knoxville Ice Bears a thrilling 5-4 victory in game six of the SPHL Finals, sending the best-of-seven series to a winner-take-all game Thursday night in Knoxville. Pelkey’s hat trick plus one assist performance trumped the outstanding goaltending of Fayetteville’s Guy St. Vincent who recorded 59 saves in a losing effort. “Our team just had a sense of urgency. Obviously we need to play much better than we have the rest of this series. Fayetteville’s had one heck of a series. They’re one heck of a hockey club,” Knoxville coach Scott Hillman said following the dramatic victory. “I believe we matched their intensity tonight and maybe even exceeded it for the first time in the series.” The question as the teams took the ice was who wanted the game more. In the early going, Knoxville took the cue from its home crowd and pressured the Fayetteville end. That all came to a halt at the 4:35 mark when FireAntz’ forward Emery Olauson, standing in front of Ice Bears’ goalie Kirk Irving, scooped up the rebound of Brett Needham’s shot and stuffed it past Irving to put Fayetteville in front. Just over a minute later, while Knoxville was still trying to recover from the first tally, Rob Sich corralled the rebound off a Corey Hessler drive and beat Irving, giving the ‘Antz a 2-0 lead less than six minutes in. The second goal seemed to reawaken the Ice Bears. They began taking more of the play away from the FireAntz, forcing Fayetteville defenseman Bob Rapoza to take a hooking penalty at the 7:07 mark. The much-maligned Knoxville power play came out and during the back half of the man advantage scored its first goal since game two. Pelkey did the honors with assists going to Mike Carter and Justin Keller at 8:22, cutting the margin to 2-1. From there, Knoxville pressed even harder, but every time they shot, Fayetteville net minder St. Vincent was there to make a save. By the end of the first period, Knoxville had out shot Fayetteville 20-11 but still trailed by one. After killing off the remaining time of a carry over Fayetteville power play at the start of the second period, the Ice Bears once again ratcheted up the attack. By the midway point of the stanza, the shots were an astounding 15-2 in favor of the home team. The 14th shot ended up being the lucky one as Pelkey netted his second of the game at 9:26, tying the contest at two and drawing thunderous cheers from the fans. It took Fayetteville until the final six minutes of the period to get its attack going. Finally at the 14:42 mark, the FireAntz found the right combination as Chris Leveille set up linemate Matt Moreland for a goal that once again put the visitors in the lead. Once again, Knoxville had over twenty shots on net and once again, they trailed. With twenty minutes between themselves and watching the President’s Cup going to Fayetteville, the Ice Bears needed something to go right and it did in the form of a power play 29 seconds into the third. Once again, they were able to cash in, this time when Pelkey and Frank Furdero combined to set up Chris Rebernik at 2:02 to knot the score at three. Fayetteville, however, wasn’t done. Twenty-one seconds after a failed opportunity on a power play, the ‘Antz struck as Sean Cryer got the puck to Leveille who in turn got it to Hessler who scored at 7:06 to put Fayetteville back in front at 4-3. The final minutes of regulation were white knuckle time for both sides as Fayetteville tried to protect the lead while Knoxville just wanted to get the equalizer. Finally, with Irving pulled for an extra attacker, the Ice Bears got their wish as Tim Vitek took advantage of St. Vincent playing with only half a stick and heavy traffic in front to score the tying goal with 1:11 remaining on the clock. “They (Knoxville) capitalized of a couple of chance they had and we didn’t,” Fayetteville coach Tommy Stewart said. “Their power play was a little better tonight. They went two for five and ours went zero for five – the first time in the playoffs. It was a bit of a difference.” In the overtime, Fayetteville seemed to get a second wind, getting several shots on Irving who blocked each one. Finally, on Knoxville’s sixth shot of the extra session, Kevin Harris got the puck to Pelkey who fired a shot through a maze of sticks and skates that somehow eluded St. Vincent to force one more game to decide the championship. “All the way down the ice I was saying ‘give it to Pelkey, give it to Pelkey’. I just had that feeling because obviously with two goals already, he was just a man on a mission,” Hillman said of the game-winning goal. “He’s played such solid hockey throughout the playoffs and been an unsung hero until tonight playing against the other team’ top line.” Stewart said that although the loss stung, being in the position of needing to win isn’t new to his troops. “We haven’t done an easy job all year. It took us the last game of the regular season (that) we had to win to get into the playoffs. Then we went to Columbus and won game five there 2-0 with our backs against the wall,” he said. “Our backs are against the wall now. It’s game seven for all the marbles. It’s going to be good.” Hillman said that he expects another great game with the President’s Cup on the line. “It’s been a great series so far. Two very evenly matched teams we believe. Our work is not done,” he said. “We preserved home ice advantage to get game seven in our house and it’s going to be another battle. It’s great for this league. It’s great for guys in both locker rooms. This is what professional hockey is all about.” Game Notes…FireAntz fans who couldn’t make the trip gathered at Huske Hardware House in Fayetteville to watch the game on projection screens…Irving had a very good night in net for the Ice Bears, stopping 32 of 36 shots in the victory…After picking up four points in game two, Knoxville’s Kevin Swider has just two points (one goal, one assist) in the last four games…Fayetteville’s Sich has picked up four goals and one assist in the last four contests…Game 7 is set for the Knoxville Civic Coliseum starting at 7:35 P.M. on Thursday. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com |
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