PEORIA, IL – The Peoria Rivermen never trailed as they survived a pair of second period goals against to beat the Louisiana IceGators 3-2 Sunday at Carver Arena. The win, Peoria’s first since last Saturday against Knoxville, improves the Rivermen to 6-3-1, tying them with Pensacola for second in the SPHL standings one point behind league-leading Mississippi.
The Rivermen opened the scoring at 18:42 of the first period, after Brandon Greenside went off at 17:55 for a cross check, the Rivermen took the puck from a faceoff in front of their own bench and into the Louisiana zone where Alec Hagaman buried a doorstep feed from Dan Bremner for the 1-0 lead.
The IceGators tied the game at 14:27 of the second stanza when Stephen Buco beat RIvermen netminder Kyle Rank for the 1-1 score. The tie didn’t last long as Timmy Hall walked into the middle slot and at 15:04 of the second he beat IceGators goaltender Adam Courchaine high stick-side for the 2-1 Peoria lead. The IceGators tied it before the end of the period as at 17:57 of the second Dylan Hood skated into the right circle and beat Rank inside the post for the 2-2 score.
The game remained tied until 16:40 of the final period when Bremner put a shot on net that was kicked aside by Courchaine right to Timmy Hall, who buried it high glove side for the 3-2 game-winner.
Kyle Rank started for the Rivermen in net and stopped 20 of 22 shots faced, including several crucial Louisiana chances in the final 44 seconds after the IceGators pulled Courchaine in favor of the extra attacker. The win improves Rank to 4-2-1 on the season and 3-0-1 in five games played against the IceGators.
Notes: The short-handed goal by Hagaman is Peoria’s first short-handed marker of the season. The Rivermen out-shot the IceGators for the third straight day, 38-22. For the three-game series at Carver Arena Peoria ended up out-shooting Louisiana 127-70. With the win, Peoria improves to 6-3-1 to tie them with Pensacola for second in the SPHL standings with 13 points, one point shy of Mississippi.
Text provided by Peoria Rivermen media release
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