READING, Pa – The South Carolina Stingrays improved their record to 21-16-2 and 44 points as they won their sixth straight road game Monday afternoon in a Martin Luther King Day matinee 4-3 over the Reading Royals. The win capped a successful road trip as the ‘Rays earned 12 of the 14 available points on their longest trip of the season. The trip also marked a nice turn around as the ‘Rays went into the trek having lost four straight games at home and opened with a loss in the first road game of this trip.
South Carolina’s leading scorer Pierre-Luc O’Brien had a three point afternoon including his 17th goal of the season to lead the way. His game winning goal came at 14:42 of the third period. Rookie net minder Philipp Grubauer stopped 18 of 21 shots and improved his record to 15-7-1 built on a 2.20 goals against average and a save percentage of 0.921. He leads all rookies in goal tender stats.
The Stingrays trailed 2-1 at the end of the first period as the Royals struck first in the game at 9:19 on a nifty backhanded shot by forward Dennis McCauley. Casey Haines picked up the single assist on the goal. The second Reading goal came at 12:49 off the stick of Yannick Tifu. His strike drew assists from McCauley and Ryan Cruthers.
Tifu’s ninth goal of the season sandwiched a first period South Carolina strike by new comer Mike Hamilton who found the net on a power play at 11:09 of the period. He caught a rebound and hammered it home past Royals’ goal tender Karel St Laurent for a short lived equalizer and a 1-1 tie that Tifu spoiled.
The two teams traded goals in the middle stanza as the ‘Rays tied the game at 2-2 just over six and one half minutes into the period. Defenseman Brett Flemming got the goal blocker side past St Laurent. He was set up by O’Brien and Maxime Lacroix.
The Royals stormed back and took a 3-2 lead into the second intermission as Kenny Ryan got nice setups from Rob Kwiet and Ryan Button beating Grubauer in close at 13:45. That lead held up until the Stingrays scored two unanswered goals in the final period of regulation.
First Zach Tarkir pumped in a goal in just 36 seconds into the period to gain the 3-3 tie. O’Brien picked up his second assist on the score as Trent Campbell was credited with second helper. Next O’Brien’s game winner came off a tip in as he deflected a shot from the point by Flemming as he skated on net. Lacroix got his second point in the game as he also recorded an assist on the game winner.
The Rays launched 33 shots on goal while holding the Royals to 21 shots in the game. After the marathon road trip and a long bus ride home South Carolina will entertain the Greenville Road Warriors Friday night at home.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
