JACKSONVILLE, FLA – On Wednesday, May 19th, the Jacksonville Icemen set out to sweep its back-to-back midweek games when the Greenville Swamp Rabbits arrived at the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena. The host Icemen got themselves in position to do just that but the Swamp Rabbits had other ideas, scoring four unanswered goals to come away with a 4-2 victory.
The first period was a defensive struggle as goalies Kyle Keyser of Jacksonville and John Lethemon went toe-to-toe in the opening twenty minutes. Only one shot found the back of the net and it went to the home team as for the second consecutive night, Brandon Gignac lit the goal light for his 9th goal of the season. Assists on the tally were credited to Andrew Peski and Alex-Olivier Voyer.
The Icemen’s lead grew to two early in the second frame. Just 3:44 in, Voyer and Erik Bradford drew the helpers on the 19th goal of the 20-21 campaign by Pascal Aquin to make it 2-0.
The second score by Jacksonville seemed to turn the switch for Greenville. Less than two minutes later, the Swamp Rabbits got on the board when Graham Knott set up Garrett Thompson for his 14th of the year to trim the margin to 2-1.
The final frame was all Swamp Rabbits. At the 4:21 mark, Frank Hora netted his 5th goal of the season with the assists going to Thompson and Frank DiChiara. It tied the game at 2-2. Then at 7:58, Liam Pecararo and Joey Haddad combined to set up Ben Finkelstein for his 9th to put the visitors in the lead for good.
Knott finished off the scoring with his 7th of the year off an assist from Thompson, giving the Swamp Rabbits a 4-2 lead at 12:45. From there, Lethemon put a lockdown on his net, holding the Icemen at bay the rest of the way.
Lethemon finished the night with 21 saves on 23 shots faced while Jacksonville’s Keyser stopped 30 of the 34 Greenville shots he saw in suffering the loss.
Contact the photojournalist at trina.kirk@prohockeynews.com
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