PEORIA, IL – The Peoria Rivermen scored twice in the first period and never trailed en route to a 4-1 win over the Quad City Storm at the Peoria Civic Center Saturday night. The win, Peoria’s second in as many nights, improves Peoria to 37-7-8 on the season with four games remaining in the regular season.
The Rivermen scored a pair of goals 93 seconds apart to take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission. Peoria winger Joe Kalisz netted the game’s first goal and his 10th of the season at the 15:47 mark of the frame, one-timing a Ben Blasko pass from the right circle. Rivermen forward Pijus Rulevicius followed with a wrister from the same spot past the left shoulder of Storm netminder Peter Di Salvo. Rulevicius’s 11th goal of the season doubled the advantage at the 17:20 mark of the period.
Peoria defensemen Ben Oskroba lit the lamp early in the second period for his eighth goal of the season, one-timing a pass from blueline mate Nick Neville at the top of the Quad City slot to push the advantage to 3-0 at the 2:41 mark of the second period.
Storm forward Stephen Gaul got Quad City on the board at the 11:18 mark of the middle frame, wristing a shot from inside the left circle past Stephen Klein’s glove to close the gap to 3-1 into the second intermission.
The Rivermen put the game out of reach in the third period when Beau Walker skated into the left-wing circle of the Quad City zone and one-timed a feed from teammate Ryan Siiro past Di Salvo at the 7:16 mark of the period for the eventual 4-1 final score.
Klein earned the win between the pipes and improved to 20-5-2 on the season with the victory, stopping 23 of 24 Storm shots. The victory is Klein’s second in as many nights and dropped his league-best goals-against to 1.84.
Game recap courtesy of official SPHL media release
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