Levac leads Dashers to win in home season finale

DANVILLE, IL – Justin Levac led the Danville Dashers tonight in their 5-3 victory over the Brewster Bulldogs. Levac scored the first goal of the contest, had two assist, and led the Dashers with nine hits on defense.

“I just look to lead by example, and the past couple weeks I’ve been dealing with some different injuries, but tonight I came in pretty healthy and looked to get the guys going early and set a physical tone to the game.” said Levac, about his performance on the defensive end of the ice.

Danville as a unit, played outstanding defense, only allowing 21 shots to get to net minder Matt Anthony. Anthony defended his recent title of Goaltender of The Year for the FHL tonight, stopping 18 shots of the 21 he saw. Danville also took the physicality to the Brewster team tonight, after having it taken to them in Friday nights 2-1 shootout loss. Coach Harrison went on to say, “I’ve preached all season that if we play hard away from the puck, we will be a tough team to beat, and tonight we did just that. Matty (Matt Anthony) played great for us tonight, stopping the shots that got through to him.

“We stood to the challenge tonight, they tried to come in here and play physical and we beat them at it. Over the course of the year we probably haven’t played as physical as the other teams in the league, but the boys stood up tonight and secured a big win in the playoff race.” Harrison later added.

Levac got the offense for Danville going tonight off a feed from Jonathan Juliano, and when asked about that play he defected all credit to “Jules” (Juliano). “Jules made a great play to get me the puck in the slot. I just tired to shoot low blocker side and thankfully it went in, but Jules is the one who set the play up.”

Brewster would knot things up at one later in the first period, and that would be the score after one period of play from the David S. Palmer Arena.

Early in the second period, Derrick Schwartz would find himself racing up the ice where, after shooting a puck low at the pads of Brewster goalie Bobbie Bowden, he would tap in his own rebound the give the Dashers the 2-1 lead. Schwartz would also find himself in the penalty box for a good amount of time. Schwartz had two fights on the night, in which both, the 1,814 people at the Palmer Arena thought he won.

Brewster would once again tie the game before the end of the period. The game was even at two going into the locker room for the third period.

Brent Clarke would shoot the Dashers into the lead, following a pass from Chris Affinati. Levac would also get an assist on the goal.

Justin Brausen, who was named FHL Forward of the year, would later make it 4-2 off of a hard wrist shot that deflected in off of a Brewster defensemen.

After a Brewster goal, Schwartz would add an empty net goal to give Danville the 5-3 win in their regular season finally.

Danville will be in action tomorrow, in Port Huron. Tomorrow‘s game will decide who gets home ice advantage in the first round of the FHL playoffs. For dates and times on those playoff games, check danvilledashers.com, or the Danville Dashers Facebook page.

“We lead the league in attendance this year, and we would love to have our fans come out and support us this weekend, we feed off of them, and want to see a big crowd here at the Palmer.” said Head Coach Steve Harrison.