NORTH CHARLESTON, SC- The South Carolina Stingrays have extended their current winning streak to seven games by skating and winning games Friday, Saturday and Sunday over this past weekend. They opened the busy weekend with a 3-1 victory Friday night in Gwinnett over the Gladiators. Matt Scherer, Nikita Kashirsky and Keith Johnson supplied the firepower as the Stingrays scored twice in the third period to break a 1-1 tie. Todd Ford stopped 30 of 31 shots on goal to run his record to 8-4-0-1 on the season. This was the club’s fifth straight win, all coming on the road. Despite the five game winning streak, it was with some concern that local fans welcomed the team back to the North Charleston Coliseum for back to back matches against the Elmira Jackals on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Ironically, the ‘Rays who have a current road record of 11-2-0-2 were returning to home ice where they had managed only three wins and a record of 3-4-1-1 until this weekend. They had also lost badly in their last home stand, losing three straight games. They were outscored by a margin of 17 to 5 and were embarrassed in the final game of the home stand, losing 7-1 to the Johnstown Chiefs. The ‘Rays, to the delight of their followers, kept the win streak alive and increased it to seven straight with two wins at home Saturday night and Sunday afternoon over the Jackals. The two wins improved their home record to 5-4-1-1 and the season record to 16-6-1-3 and 36 points in 26 games. On Saturday night at home, the ‘Rays led 4-1 at the end of the first period, to the delight of the 4,142 fans in attendance. That delight vanished and became concern when Elmira closed the gap in the second period with two unanswered goals. The Jackals climbed to within one goal of the lead around the 14 minute mark of the second period. However, from that point on Braden Holtby, in goal for the ‘Rays, got lots of help as the home team smothered Elmira’s offense allowing them only five shots on goal in the final 20 minutes. Holtby (7-2-1-2), stopped 27 of 30 shots in recording his seventh win of the season. He has a team leading 2.95 goals against average and a sparking 0.911 save percentage. Keith Johnson, Nikita Kashirshy, who got his team leading 13th, Josh Godfrey and Rob Ricci scored the goals in the win. Tyler Donati led the visitors with two goals and Chanse Fitspatrick had the other marker and Michael-Lee Teslak was in goal for Elmira. Sunday’s crowd of 3,366 actually had about 1,500 other “visitors” all of whom got a chance to test the surface of the ice courtesy of ‘Rays’ forward Keith Johnson. His shorthanded goal in the first eight minutes of play, was his third goal of the weekend and ninth of the season, which was the trigger for the crowd to flood the ice with the teddy bears they had brought to donate for the holiday season. This 1-0 lead lasted nine seconds when Mat Robinson cashed in on the same power play that had produced Johnson’s shorthanded strike. That would be the lone marker of the night for the Jackals despite the fact that they launched 35 shots at winning goalie, Todd Ford, including a late game penalty shot. Pier Olivier Pelletier in goal for the Jackals was able to keep the Stingrays scoreless after their initial goal, until Matt Fornataro solved him twice in period three. He scored early at 1:33 and once again at 4:15 of the third period. His second goal of the game and eleventh of the season, came while the ‘Rays were on a five minute power play. Jackal’s forward Brendan Connolly had been assessed a major penalty and game misconduct for spearing at the same time Fornataro got his first goal. The contest’s final outcome was settled when Goalie Ford stopped Chris Korchinski on a penalty shot at 18:41 of the final stanza. The shot was awarded when the referee ruled the goal had been intentionally displaced by a Stingrays’ player denying the Jackals a scoring chance. The wins assured that ‘Rays maintained their overall points lead in the ECHL American Conference. However, the lead is based in part on the fact that South Carolina has played more games than any other team in the conference, so the race will no doubt tighten. Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
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