DANVILLE, ILL – The Danville Dashes and the Dayton Demons are natural rivals so when the two teams got together for game one of their best-of-three playoff Series on Thursday, March 12, fireworks were sure to happen. In a contest that had the scorekeepers plenty busy, Jonathan Juliano’s goal with less than two minutes left was the difference as the Dashes upended the Demons by a final of 8-7.
None of the fans could have expected the shootout that happened by watching the first period. Each team scored just once in the frame as Seth Rosenberg of Dayton and Juliano had the respective tallies as the rivals fought to a 1-1 tie after one frame.
Danville jumped in front 3:58 into the second when James Gordon scored to make it 2-1 in favor of the Dashes. Dayton, the defending league champions, responded with three unanswered scores as Cody Milligan, Roger Tagoona and Ahmed Mahfouz all lit the goal light to give the Demons a 4-2 lead.
The Dashes mounted a comeback in the late stages of the stanza. John Scully scored at the 16:00 mark and Justin Brausen did likewise just over a minute later, sending the teams to the third period tied at four.
Goals by Dayton’s Brett Wall and Tagoona before the period was five minutes old put the Demons ahead again by two scores. The Dashes again dug in and came back to even the score at 6-6 as Brausen and AJ Tesoriero both put the puck in the back of the net.
Tagoona netted his hat trick goal at the 15:36 mark to put Dayton in front one more time at 7-6. On this night however, the home team would not be denied. With the goalie pulled for an extra attacker, Andrew Harrison scored with 1:37 left in regulation to knot the score one more time. 31 seconds later, Juliano became the hero as he scored the game-winning tally.
Danville goalie Matt Anthony made 45 saves on 52 shots faced to earn the win. Dayton netminder Dan McWhinney made 40 saves in suffering the loss.
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