JACKSONVILLE, FLA – On Friday, February 19th, the Jacksonville Icemen celebrated one of their own, forward Nick Saracino, whose birthday fell the next day. The team decided to make it a party, creating a giveaway bobblehead to fans. Saracino paid the Icemen and their fans back by scoring the game-winning goal in overtime as Jacksonville downed the South Carolina Stingrays by a final of 3-2 in front of a COVID-restricted crowd of 3,422 at the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena.
From the outset, the two netminders – Kyle Keyser for Jacksonville and Sean Bonar for South Carolina – controlled the contest. Neither one was in a giving mood in the first period as both pitched a shutout in the opening twenty minutes. Keyser turned away eight Stingrays shots while Bonar stopped nine opportunities by the Icemen.
The second period started with a bang when Jacksonville’s Jacob Cederholm squared off with South Carolina’s Tim Harrison in a rousing battle. A little under two minutes later, Max Novak set up teammate Cole Ully for the first goal of the game at the 6:04 mark. Late in the frame, the Icemen responded when Saracino and veteran Wacey Rabbit combined to set up Ara Nazarian who scored his sixth of the season and evened the score at 1-1 heading to the final period.
Midway through the third frame, South Carolina took advantage of a power play to regain the lead. Ully bagged his second goal of the game and eighth of the season with assists going to Dan DeSalvo and Zach Malatesta. It came on the Stingrays tenth shot of the stanza to just four by the Icemen at the time.
Jacksonville dug in and once again pulled even. This time it was Craig Martin who beat Bonar for his fourth of the year with the helpers going to Kevin McKernan and Cederholm at 13:54.
At the start of overtime, South Carolina’s Blake Hillman was called for interference, giving Jacksonville a four-on-three power play. It only took 23 seconds for Trevor Hamilton and Michael Kim to set up Saracino who netted his seventh of the season to win the contest.
Keyser finished the game with 21 saves in picking up the win while Bonar stopped 23 shots in suffering the loss.
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