AUGUSTA, GA – On Saturday, January 7th, the Augusta RiverHawks tied a Southern Professional Hockey League record by scoring three short-handed goals on their way to defeating the Fayetteville FireAntz 7-2 at the James Brown Arena. Six different RiverHawks chipped in with goals on the night as they took the first game of a weekend back-to-back series.
Forwards Branden Kosolofsky and Jim Gehring scored short-handed goals just 27 seconds apart in the second period to give the RiverHawks a dominant hold over the game. Jesse Echternach scored the record-tying short-handed tally in the third period. Goaltender Peter Skoggard made 25 saves to pick up the victory, his first since returning to the team in December.
The RiverHawks scored three goals in both the first and second period to give themselves a seemingly insurmountable lead. In the first, Kyle Watson started things off with a goal just 1:09 into the stanza. The score stayed at 1-0 for quite a while as the defenses settled in. Then just past the 16 minute mark, Gehring and Egor Mironov scored 44 seconds apart to bump the lead to three. As it turned out, Mironov’s goal went down as the game-winning goal, making it his second winner in as many games since rejoining the RiverHawks.
The second period featured the first two short-handed goals of the game just over four minutes into the frame. The FireAntz showed signs of life just before the midway point when Bobby Reed converted a nice Chris Leveille pass for a power play goal. Any hope the FireAntz had to make a comeback was snuffed out by the RiverHawks with less than two minutes left in the period when Tyler Fernandez hammered home his second goal as a member of the RiverHawks.
Augusta jumped right back into the goal column just over a minute into the third with Echternach’s short-handed tally which finished Augusta’s scoring for the night. Fayetteville would tally one late goal in the period as Andrew Willock beat Skoggard but by then the outcome had been decided.
The win gave the RiverHawks a one point lead on the Knoxville Ice Bears at the top of the SPHL standings.
Augusta%27s Jim Gehring (14%2C right) scores one of his two goals in the game.
RiverHawks goalie Peter Skoggard makes one of his 25 saves against Fayetteville.
Fayetteville%27s Kyle McNeil (22%2C left) and Augusta%27s Tyler Howe square off agains each other.
Fayetteville%27s Bobby Reed (19%2C black jersey) fends off Augusta%27s Jesse Echternach.
Augusta%27s Branden Kosolofsky (39%2C left) beats FireAntz goalie Erik Hudson fo a short-handed goal.
Contact the photographer at stephanie.simpers@prohockeynews.com
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