Five-Goal Pushback Nets Bobcats Road Win
ONALASKA, WI – The Bismarck Bobcats volleyed home five goals in the final 40 minutes of regulation to head into the Christmas break with a 5-2 road victory over the Coulee Region Chill Saturday at the Omni Center.
With the win, the Bobcats wrap up the first half of the 2012-13 season with a 16-12-2 record and sole possession of second place in the Central Division.
Trailing 1-0 after an uneven first period, the Bobcat squared the game at one with 12:24 to go in the second when Cory Chapman redirected a Nate Repensky shot through the legs of Chill goalie Blake Cates.
Patrick Moore needed just 43 seconds to put the visitors ahead for good, dekeing his way through the Coulee Region defense and out-waited Cates before flipping the puck over the prone keeper for a 2-1 Bobcat edge.
Moore pushed that lead to 3-1 with 9:36 left in the third, grabbing his own miss on the power play off the back wall and stuffed it between Cates’ legs for his second straight goal.
“As a coaching staff, we hope that our forwards learned a valuable lesson tonight: working hard and getting to gritty areas will create goals,” assessed Bobcats assistant coach Garrett Roth. “Chapman gets to the slot and makes a good redirect, Patty gets strong on the post and stuffs one in; that’s how you have to score in this league.”
Coulee Region’s Tyler Lushanko added a degree of drama to the proceedings, ripping a one-timer past Bobcat netminder Bryan Nies on a 3-on-2 rush to cut the Cats’ lead to one at 3-2 with 7:12 remaining in regulation.
The Chill, however, would not draw any closer as Shane Omdahl tacked on a big insurance goal with 2:10 to go, blazing a rising wrister over Cates’ glove for his 12th goal of the season and a 4-2 lead.
Joe Giordano put an exclamation on the first half-closing victory with a power play strike, laying out to redirect a back-door pass from Moore with just five seconds left in the game to give the contest its final score of 5-2.
It was Coulee Region who got out of the gates first, registering a goal from Mac Jansen on a 5-on-3 power play when a blocked shot squirted out to the top-scoring Chill forward for an easy put-back past Nies and a 1-0 lead for the home side with 4:35 to go in the opening frame.
That lead for the Chill could have been larger if not for some first period heroics by Nies, who denied Jansen on a breakaway with a kick save.
“Bryan played with a lot of confidence made a huge save in the first period to keep us in the game,” credited Bobcats head coach and general manager. “Without that save it could’ve been 2-0 after one, which is a completely different game. We needed him to come up big early and he did; that’s a big key to win on the road.”
Nies made 31 saves to push his record back to .500 at 6-6-0 on the season. Cates made 29 saves but slipped to 6-8-2 on the season.
The two sides will reconvene after Christmas for two games at the VFW Sports Center in Bismarck, starting with a 7:15 PM Friday rematch with a Saturday tilt scheduled for the same time.
Friday’s home contest will be broadcast locally on the radio home of Bobcat Hockey, Super Talk 1270, KLXX-AM, and worldwide on the official internet television partner of the NAHL, FASTHockey, at http://nahl.fasthockey.com. Pregame coverage gets under way at 7:30 PM.
Pro-rated season tickets for the 2012-13 season are now on sale—and going fast! Call the Bobcat Hockey office today at (701) 222-3300 to reserve your seats for another great season of Championship Entertainment.