EVANSVILLE, Indiana — The Peoria Rivermen put themselves in the driver’s seat for a championship with wins in the first two games of the SPHL President’s Cup Finals.
But then they came to Ford Center, ran into a driven Evansville Thunderbolts team, and put Evansville in position to win back-to-back titles with a 3-1 decision Thursday over Peoria in Game 4 before 2,381.
That capped two losses in two nights at Ford Center, where the Rivermen finished 1-7-1 this season. It also saw Peoria slip into a 2-2 tie in the best-of-5 series, with both teams facing a winner-take-all final game on Saturday in Peoria.
How did it come to this?
“I always say it’s very dangerous when you win the first two games of the series, get in these moments, because you take a breath,” Rivermen head coach Jean-Guy Trudel said as his team loaded up for a return to Peoria late Thursday night. “When you do that, you’re just not in the same focus. I think maybe without knowing it, our players took a little bit of a breath after taking that 2-0 lead and you can see the damage.
“For us, we just don’t want to pay a price these last two games, to score or just to get to the interior. The interior is where it hurts. Unfortunately right now our guys don’t want to get to the places that hurt, and that’s why we are not having success.”
The Rivermen had two shots at clinching a title in Evansville, but in both Game 3 and Game 4 they played at a slow pace and were turnover-ridden in the first period.
That pattern gave Evansville the high ground both nights. Peoria picked up the pace in Game 4 over the final 40 minutes, but ran into some bad puck luck, too, twice hitting iron.
‘Every game has its story’
The Rivermen nearly tied it 4:33 into the third period when rookie Kullan Daikawa beat goaltender Kristian Stead with a shot from the inside edge of the left circle. But the puck smashed off the right post, bounced into Stead’s back, ricocheted back toward the net and stopped on the goal line just as the goaltender twisted and dove on it.
Still down 2-1, Peoria earned a power play late in the third period when Stead was penalized for playing the puck outside the trapezoid. The Rivermen spent most of that power play in the Evansville zone but could not get a game-tying goal.
That included another big moment, with 7:29 left, when 2024-25 SPHL MVP Jordan Ernst cranked up a big drive from the left circle that beat Stead. But the puck banged off the crossbar and ricocheted away.
“Hit the post, hit the crossbar, doesn’t matter,” Ernst said. “Every game has its story. You have to match intensity and find a way to keep going through it. We haven’t shown up, we all know that, we got to be so much better.
“We talked about this at the beginning of the series, knew this was going to be a war. We knew they weren’t going to quit. I don’t think we matched their intensity. We have to look each other in the eye, look in the mirror and figure it out.”
Afterward, in a quiet Rivermen room that includes a half-dozen flu-ridden players and a captain, in Alec Baer, who donned a full bubble face shield before the game because of an injury, they went about the business of disassembling a room that was set up days ago in hopes of a celebration.
Cards, pictures, well-wishes from fans and family that lined the walls were being carefully taken down. Players helped pack the team bus. A couple got treatments. And then they were gone into the night, back to Peoria, where this series started with so much promise.
And Evansville is on its way, too.
“We’ve been resilient all year … now we’re heading back there,” said Evansville center Tyson Gilmour, who notched the game-winner. “We got to come out with the same energy and have some fun with it. That’s all there is to it, really.”
How it happened
A Peoria defensive zone meltdown put Evansville on the board first when Derek Contessa finished an easy shot from the back door at the bottom of the right circle at 9:17 of the first period.
The Thunderbolts jumped to a 2-0 lead 77 seconds into the second period when Gilmour finished a two-on-one break off a puck possession mess that happened outside the Rivermen blueline.
The Rivermen turned it up after that, getting on the board at 2:41 when Mike McChesney deflected a shot from the slot past Stead to cut their deficit to 2-1.
A key moment came when Evansville was awarded a 5-on-3 power play for 1:09 at 8:23. But Peoria killed off both ends of it and stayed close.
Neither team has managed a power play goal yet in this championship series.
The Rivermen had great pressure and chances in the third period, but could not get an equalizer. Peoria pulled Latinovich for an extra attacker with 1:02 left, and Jordan Simoneau sealed it with an empty-net goal with 44.2 seconds left, screaming in Ernst’s face after the goal.
“We just didn’t play our best hockey,” Trudel said. “I know my leaders are annoyed when I say this, but if your best players are not your best players on the ice you don’t win anything. We need them to play big in big games. I haven’t seen that yet.
“So hopefully Game 5 it will be there.”
River Readings
The Rivermen reunited center JM Piotrowski with wingers Daikawa and Matt Wiesner, a line that was the team’s best unit in the semifinals against Knoxville. … There were about 150 Rivermen fans who made the trip to see Game 4 at Ford Center.
(This story has been updated to add pictures and video)
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star senior writer and sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: With nothing to celebrate, Rivermen return to Peoria in a series tie
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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