CORPUS CHRISTI, TX – A back-and-forth effort ultimately ended in the Brahmas picking up a 4-3 shootout victory on Friday night over the Corpus Christi IceRays.
For the second straight night the Brahmas got off to a sluggish start in the shots on goal category and the IceRays struck first. With Cody Wickline in the box for a hooking minor, Regan Cavanagh received a pass from the wall and beat Conor O’Brien from the inside of the circle.
Three minutes later, in his return to the lineup, Samu Suominen beat Dryden McKay for the first time this weekend with a heavy rip from the point. The screens in front of the netminder made it impossible for him to track the puck and the twine rattled to even the contest at one.
Unfortunately for Suominen, a costly error on the other side of the intermission would give the home IceRays the lead again after he turned the puck over in his own zone. Brady Crabtree and Andy McGlynn played pitch-and-catch until Crabtree deposited a wrister past O’Brien for his first as a member of Corpus Christi.
The lead lasted roughly ten minutes until Bud Madej did what he does best in the scoring department by striking on the power play. After an offensive zone face-off win, the Illinois native received the puck, stepped up in the zone and drove one into the cage, knotting the game at two.
Friday’s scoring pattern continued into the final period of regulation and this time it was an IceRay d-man, Trevor Heuser on the power play. With less than half the period to go the Brahmas trailed by one until Ferris State commit Cam Clarke was the beneficiary of a rebound that he could not miss. After the lamp was lit, we headed in the direction of overtime.
The extra five proved to no fruition for either side despite the Brahmas controlling a large majority of the period and Madej laying two monstrous hits.
Princeton commit Joey Fallon opened the shootout by beating McKay and a few rounds later he was matched by a stop-start move of Tomas Brejcha to seal the deal for the Brahmas.
Conor O’Brien stopped two of three in the shootout and 14 of 17 on the night to pick up his tenth win of the season.
The rubber match at the American Bank Center begins tomorrow at 7:11 and it’s set to be a good one! Catch all the action on FASTHockey.com if you can’t make the trip to the beach!