JACKSONVILLE, FLA – On Sunday, April 18th, the Jacksonville Icemen finished off a three games in four days stretch with a battle against the South Carolina Stingrays at the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena in the River City. On the heels of an overtime win over the Stingrays the night before, the Icemen were looking for a second straight win but Andrew Cherniwchan’s late third period goal tally sent the home team away with a 2-1 loss.
There was plenty of intensity throughout Sunday’s contest after Saturday night’s thrilling Jacksonville victory in North Charleston. Jacksonville controlled the shot board, out shooting South Carolina 10-6 in the first period. There was a fight late in the frame between the Icemen’s Pascal Aquin and the Stingrays’ Tim Harrison that got the fans excited. Only one goal was scored, coming off the stick of South Carolina’s Blake Hillman, who took a feed from Dan DeSalvo and roofed a backhander over Jacksonville goalie Charles Williams to make it 1-0 in favor of the visitors.
Following a scoreless second frame, it took more than half the final stanza for another goal to be registered. Playing on a power play, Jacksonville’s Erik Bradford fired a shot on Stingrays netminder Matt Jurusik. Jurusik made the save but Icemen sniper Ara Nazarian dug out the rebound and shoved it under the goalie to even the score at 1-1 with 6:38 remaining in regulation.
As time dwindled down, it looked like the teams might go to extra time for the second consecutive day buy Stingrays captain Cherniwchan had other ideas. Taking a pass off the boards from teammate Justin Florek, Cherniwchan headed for the net then deftly putting a backhand shot over the right shoulder of Williams just inside the post. It proved to be the game-winner as the Icemen could not dent Jurusik for the equalizer before time ran out.
Williams stopped 16 of 18 South Carolina shots in suffering the tough luck loss. Jurusik turned away 41 Jacksonville attempts on net to secure the win and the split of the weekend set.
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