By David Dell
ELMIRA NY– Game two of the weekend on the road, saw the Elmira River Sharks playing host to the Prowlers once again. With fresh breath in their lungs, the Prowlers took the game to the Sharks right from the opening face-off. At 00:16 of the first period, a misdirected pass was stolen by Liam Freeborn behind the Elmira cage who then got it on a tape-to-tape pass to Mitch Jones (9th of the season). Jones jet speed shot, beat River Sharks’ goalie Sammy Bernard. At 5:59 Bret Parker dug the puck out of a scramble of players and gaining the zone, put it past Tucker Tynan to score the game at 1 each. Mitch Jones was tired of the slashing he was receiving from Frank Trazzera and responded in kind. A fight broke out and both received Fighting majors with an extra Slashing minor and Game Misconduct tacked on to Jones to end his game for the night. The dust-up occurred at 7:59. Port Huron’s penalty kill was on at that point with Sam Marit (8th of the season) fed a beautiful pass from Dalton Jay at 11:30 and was able to redirect it five-hole on Bernard to bump the lead back in favor of the Prowlers. It was the seventh short-handed goal of the season for the Prowlers. Both teams would trade minor penalties for the remainder of the period and the River Sharks held the shots on goal 19 to 8.
There was no scoring in the second period but Port Huron turned the tables in shots on goal allowing only five from Elmira. The Prowlers failed to capitalize on three minor penalties and seemed to have better shooting opportunities after the man-advantage expired. Port Huron put up 14 shots on goal and held a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes.
Alex Johnson (10th of the season) found pay dirt when he got a pass from Marit, who snagged his own rebound and skated from the top of the zone around to the opposite wing before beating Bernard on the glove side to put the Prowlers up 3-1 at a tick under 2 minutes. At 3:31 Evan Foley (8th of the season) lit the lamp for the Prowlers when Frank Schumacher salvaged the puck at the blue line and fed it toward the net where Vinnie Dekumbis was able to get the puck on Foley’s backhand to stuff it through the backdoor to push the score up another tally, 4-1. The River Sharks’ Steven Ford and Dan Chartrand who had been chirping all night finally dropped the gloves at 3:41 with both receiving Fighting majors. Add a few more minor penalties across both teams before Dalton Jay (9th of the season) was left a drop pass from Dalton Young who skated unopposed from deep in the Port Huron end at 14:15 and Jay promptly shot between a pair of Elmira defensemen skating across his groove, to put up the fifth goal for the visitors, beating Bernard who looked to be screened by his own teammates. The 15:05 mark and again at 15:23 brought all the frustrations to a boil when first River Shark MJ Maerkl and Prowler Tristan Simm dropped the gloves for matching Fighting majors. Maerkl also had a Game Misconduct which was later rescinded by the league’s Director of Player Safety. The next spat was between Shark Darius Davidson and Prowler Adam Heinzl. Both players picked up Fighting majors and Heinzl also had a Game Misconduct assessed that was later dropped by the league. At this point all Elmira could muster were a handful of shots but Tynan stopped them all easily.
Port Huron finished their second weekend sweep in a row, and have won their last four games, and six of their last seven. They sit in 3rd place in the Continental Division, two points ahead of Mississippi Seawolves. The Prowlers play host to this same River Sharks team on Friday and Saturday at McMorran Arena.
