PEORIA – The Peoria Rivermen surrendered three goals early in the second period and did not recover in a 5-3 loss to the Louisiana IceGators on Friday night at Carver Arena.
After a scoreless first period, the IceGators scored 1:53 into the middle stanza when Luke Kasteel found a loose puck in the slot and scored stick-side on assists from Jeremy Boyer and Tyler Amburgey. Louisiana increased the advantage to 2-0 on a shorthanded goal by Jake Hauswirth with 12:30 left, then completed a 4-on-1 break 61 seconds later with a Bret Peppler goal to build the guests’ lead to 3-0. 
The Rivermen finally tallied with 3:35 remaining in the second period when Jake Trask redirected a Paul Arnott drive from the left point also assisted by Steve Morra to cut the deficit to 3-1, but Louisiana answered just 53 seconds later when a deflected puck hit Benjamin Rubin in stride in the slot and he put back his own rebound for a 4-1 lead at the second intermission.
Peoria cut the margin to 4-2 with 13:12 left in the third period when Mike Gurtler backhanded a shot from the right wall that snuck inside the left post, assisted by Jordan Sims and Nick Schneider. The Rivermen cut the score to 4-3 when Ben Oskroba lifted a top-shelf blast from the slot with 6:49 showing on the regulation clock assisted by Morra and Trask. The IceGators sealed the win with an empty net goal by Peppler with 47.7 seconds remaining.
Marco De Filippo earned a 37-save win while Kyle Rank took the loss in the Peoria net while stopping 22 shots. Neither team scored on power plays with four chances given to the Rivermen and two to the IceGators. The Rivermen remain in third place in the Southern Professional Hockey League with a 16-10-2 record for 34 points, but now lead Louisiana (15-11-3, 33 points) by a single point.
You must be logged in to post a comment.