TOPEKA, KS – Back in their home barn the Topeka RoadRunners fled past the Brahmas by a score of 5-2 on Friday night.
The home side dominated the opening 20 minutes, getting a goal from last Saturday’s overtime hero Quinn Preston to kick things off. Before the Brahmas could get off the ice for intermission, Yu Hikosaka burned Corbin Kaczperski after his defense left the slot exposed.
To begin the second, Ryan O’Connor of Topeka extended his team’s lead to 3-0 with a power play tally. The Brahmas netminder saw none of the shot and all of the momentum favored the RoadRunners. However, the Brahmas finally struck in the closing moments of the second, not once, but twice. With 2:11 remaining and on the man advantage, Cam Clarke placed a shot on goal that was buried on a second chance by Peter Kessel. Exactly 30 seconds later, the Brahmas crashed the net again, and this time it was Jakob Romo polishing off the scrum. The tables had turned and it was all Brahmas to close out the second until John Zimmerman was given a game misconduct for obscene language. After some more pushing and shoving at the buzzer, Sami Tavernier was ejected as well for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Fast and up-tempo play continued into the third but no offense was to be found until Johnny Walker wristed one past Kaz with six minutes to go. Dan Wildfong would pull his netminder in favor of the extra attacker for the final few minutes, until JB Baker put the icing on the cake, giving the RoadRunners a 5-2 win and a 2-1 lead in the series.
Juho Niku picked up the win stopping 23 of 25 and Corbin Kaczperski suffers the loss, allowing four goals on 17 shots.
Game Four of the series takes place tomorrow at the Kansas Expocentre at 7:05. Tickets will be $5 at the door but if you can’t make the trek north, be sure to catch all the action on FastHockey.com. Additionally, the game will be aired live in ZuRoma Bar & Grille inside NYTEX Sports Centre for fans to come out and watch.