PEORIA, Ill – Despite their efforts to swim back up stream, the Riverkings were cast down river by the Peoria Rivermen Saturday. Their strong efforts on the shot clock could not surpass Peoria’s ability to get pucks in the back of the net.
The Rivermen won their final game of the season at Carver Arena with a score of 4-2 and a cheering crowd of 4,209. This victory claimed their spot as the third seed in the upcoming SPHL playoffs. 
The first period was relatively evenly matched with a slight tilt towards the Peoria Rivermen.
The Rivermen left the period with a one-goal advantage as well as leading the shots on goal by a margin of 14 to 6.
The Rivermen created excellent scoring chances. Such chances include a 3 on 1 that Riverkings goalie Brad Barone made a couple of amazing saves on. Such saves continued until 12:33 into the period when the Rivermen were able to sink one past Barone. This one and only goal in the period was scored by Don Olivieri.
A clean faceoff win by Justin Hoomaian slid right to Justin Greenside. Greenside immediately passed it over to Olivieri at the point who took his one-timer right to the net for the first Rivermen goal. The remainder of the period was quite with limited shot from either team.
The second period was filled with plenty of action. The Rivermen started off the action with a goal at 5:46 into the period.
A beautiful pass from the outside hash marks from Jeff Jones made it to Connor Gorman camping out in front of the net. Hoomaian also got his second assist of the night on this play.
The next goal was also a Rivermen tally. A rush into the zone lead to a pass from Michael Colantone from, once again, the outside hash marks. This pass was perfectly set up to give Ryan Keller a dirty tip right past Greenside. Keller was standing a mere foot from the net when he tipped it in.
The Riverkings made a push back with 11 seconds left in the second period. A failed clear attempt by Dave Pszenyczny was stolen by Derek Sutliffe. Sutliffe easily passed the puck to a waiting Mike Moran. Moran took his sweet time and took a slap shot that sailed past Storm Phaneuf for the first Riverkings tally of the night.
The third period was a mostly even match up with the shots and pressure favoring the Riverkings. Despite being down by greater margins in the first two periods, the Riverkings ended up having more shots than the Rivermen.
Each team scored a single goal in this final period.
The Rivermen were the first of the two clubs to score. Connor Goreman single handedly pushed from goal line to goal line, dodging poke checks and body checks alike, to roof the puck top shelf on Barone. Such effort was even unassisted. The goal by the Riverkings came with 5:27 left in the game.
A strange shot from outside the circle by Sutliffe bounced off another player’s skate and deflected in on goal, slipping past Phaneuf’s defenses. Even though their shots were greater than those of the Rivermen, they could not put enough pucks past Phaneuf to win the game.
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