Lancers Split The Weekend With Road Loss To Sioux Falls
October 30, 2022 – United States Hockey League (USHL) – Omaha Lancers News Release
SIOUX FALLS, SD. – After playing their best hockey of the season against the Lincoln Stars on Friday night (10/28) in a 4-1 victory back in Omaha, the Lancers headed up to the Denny Sanford Premier Center for game 10 of the regular season against the Sioux Falls Stampede.
With the Stampede kicking off their season 3-0-0-0, they only picked up one of available 10 points since, leaving them in a five-game drought.
Although the Lancers outshot Sioux Falls 14-12 through the opening period, they found themselves trailing 2-1.
The Stampede got going early as Isaac Gordon slapped home a rebound off an original shot from Ryan Gordon to take the 1-0 lead for the Sioux Falls just 3:39 into the period.
The one goal lead lasted about eight minutes until scoring leader, Sam Harris netted his seventh of the season as Michael LaStarza threaded a pass through traffic to find Harris on the back door who just had to tip the puck into the back of the net for the 2-0 lead for Sioux Falls.
The Lancers didn’t hang their heads though, as Andon Cerbone scored his second of season while shorthanded by outskating Max Rud and placed a shot in the bottom, blocker-side corner on Sioux Falls netminder, Xavier Medina, making it a 2-1 lead for the Stampede to close out the first period.
The Lancers wasted no time tying the game at two. Just 10 seconds into the second period, Alex Bump netted a powerplay goal that went five-hole on Medina off feeds from Max Wattvil and Nate Benoit to make it a 2-2 game.
Just four minutes later, Merril Steenari found Maddox Fleming backdoor for an easy tip in on Lancers’ goaltender Kevin Pasche to regain their one goal lead to make it a 3-2 game.
Following the tempo of the game, the Lancers struck back with Nate Benoit finding Griffin Jurecki on the man advantage. Jurecki carried the puck toward the slot from the boards and went bar-down on Medina to knot things up at three once again.
Moments later, Wattvil picked up a hooking minor leading to a powerplay for Sioux Falls. At this point in the game, the 40% Stampede powerplay was 0-for-2 on the night, meaning statistically, they were due for a goal. In which they followed through on.
Maddox Fleming and Nick Ring got some tic-tac-toe passing going in the attacking end as they finished the play with a give-and-go to Sam Harris, who netted his second of the night and eighth of the season.
The second period wrapped up with Sioux Falls leading by a score of 4-3.
The 4-3 lead for Sioux Falls stuck until the 17:14 mark of the third period when Noah Anderson hammered home a rebound off a shot from Maxim Strbak to extend to a 5-3 lead and improve the Stampede powerplay to 2/5 on the night.
The final goal came in on the empty net as Ryan Gordon sealed a multi-point night for himself my netting the sixth goal of the evening for Sioux Falls, as they took the victory 6-3.
The Lancers stay in third place in the west with a 4-3-2-1 record as Sioux Falls advances to sixth place at 4-4-1-0.
Omaha will be back in action Friday, October 4th as they travel to Lincoln to take on the Stars at the Ice Box. Puck drop is set for 7:05PM CST. That game can be caught on Mixlr and FloSports.
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