ESTERO, FLA – The Florida Everblades (33-17-1-2) fell to a Jacksonville Icemen (24-19-3-3) comeback in a 5-4 overtime loss at Hertz Arena on Saturday night. Florida defenseman Cody Sol scored two goals to lead the Everblades, while Christopher Brown and Abbott Girduckis both notched two assists for the Icemen.
FIRST STAR: Jake Elmer (JAX) – game-winning goal, two shots
SECOND STAR: Cody Sol (FLA) – two goals, plus-2, four shots
THIRD STAR: Charles Williams (JAX) – 33 saves
Florida leapt out of the gate in the first period and grabbed a 1-0 lead early. After a faceoff in the Jacksonville zone, Sol punished the back of the net with a powerful slap shot from the blue line 4:15 into the contest.
Jacksonville responded three and a half minutes later when Pascal Aquin scored on a sharp wrist shot to tie the game at 1-1 at 7:52 of the opening frame.
The Everblades didn’t wait long to regain the lead in the first period. Playing in his 400th professional game, Joe Pendenza scored on a two-on-one to give the Everblades a 2-1 advantage at the 8:33 mark.
Florida dominated the possession battle to start the second period, and the Everblades broke through at the 5:40 mark. Blake Winiecki threw a pass to the low slot for Sol, and the defenseman buried his second goal of the night to give Florida a 3-1 lead. The burly blueliner doubled his season goal total with a pair of tallies on the night.
Midway through the second frame, Jacksonville sliced Florida’s lead down to 3-2 on a power-play goal from Mike Szmatula at 10:04 of the frame
Levko Koper stretched Florida’s lead to 4-2 late in the second when he cashed in a rebound in front of Jacksonville goaltender Charles Williams at 19:27. Max Cook and Hugo Roy started the play by winning the puck battle on the boards for Florida, and Roy freed the disc so Koper could bag his 14th goal of the season.
The Icemen began their comeback in the third period when Ara Nazarian scored off a rebound to shorten Florida’s advantage to 4-3 at 11:03. Not three minutes later, Michael Kim received a drop pass in the Everblades’ zone and hit the top left corner of the net to send the game to a 4-4 tie at the 13:41 mark.
After two minutes of overtime, the Icemen claimed victory when Jake Elmer fired a shot that skipped past Florida goaltender Jeremy Helvig and was knocked in by Jacksonville’s Erik Bradford 2:16 into the extra period.
The weekend wraps up on Sunday, April 25th when the Everblades take on the Icemen at 7 p.m. at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville.
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