EVANSVILLE, IN – The Peoria Rivermen scored a pair of goals late in the first period and one more in each of the final two frames as they coasted to a 4-0 victory over the Evansville Thunderbolts at the Ford Center Friday night. The win, Peoria’s fourth in a row, keeps the Rivermen in first place and moves Peoria head coach Jean-Guy Trudel into second place in franchise history with 210 career victories.
The Rivermen started the scoring with a pair of goals late in the first en route to a 15-7 first-period shots-on-goal advantage. At the 14:40 mark of the first Rivermen captain Alec Hagaman finished the rebound of a Justin Greenberg drive past Thunderbolts netminder Braeden Ostepchuk for a 1-0 lead. The Rivermen lead doubled at 19:44 of the opening frame when veteran center Dean Yakura snapped a one-timer on the fly from between the circles over Ostepchuk’s shoulder.
Peoria pushed their lead to 3-0 at 14:19 of the second period on rookie winger Austin Vieth’s team-leading 16th goal of the season when the Alaska-Fairbanks product finished a pass from former Thunderbolts winger Pijus Rulevicius.
The Rivermen defense and netminder Stephen Klein held off a series of surges from the Thunderbolts in the final two periods, turning aside 26 Thunderbolts shots in the final two periods to preserve the clean slate. Greenberg added a power-play goal at 10:21 of the final frame to put the game out of reach and secure the 4-0 final score in favor of the Rivemen.
Klein stopped all 33 shots faced in net to earn his fourth shutout of the season, and his second straight scoreless outing. Klein has not allowed a goal in his last 129:29 of net time, dating back to the second period of last Friday’s game against Huntsville.
Game recap courtesy of official SPHL media release
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