NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, TX – The Brahmas looked out of sorts on Saturday night, falling to the Odessa Jackalopes 5-2.
Scoring began with Hogan Davidson beating Jacks netminder Jon Flakne five-hole on a shorthanded breakaway. Alex Berardinelli made a terrific feed to springboard the alternate captain and the Brahmas held a 1-0 lead early.
The lead didn’t quite last four minutes until Matthew Rypien made the Brahmas pay off of a turnover from their own zone. For the Lethbridge, Alberta native, it was his third goal of the season.
Before the end of the opening period, Jakob Romo and Cam Clarke made beautiful back-to-back cross-ice passes before setting up Czech sensation Tomas Brejcha in front of the net for a slam-dunk goal to regain the lead.
Unfortunately that would be the last of the scoring for the home side of the scoreboard and through the final 40 minutes of play the Jacks would tack on four. In the middle frame, Ryan MacKellar beat Conor O’Brien with a lethal wrister to tie the game back up. Just 69 seconds after that, leading-scorer Hampus Sjodahl got his 24th of the season in a fashion eerily similar to Alex Berardinelli’s goal last night. The Swede sent a puck towards the front of the next and it deflected off of reigning Defenseman of the Month Dalton Skelly’s skate and past his goaltender.
The Brahmas trailed after two and would only have their hole dug deeper. In the opening stages of the final period of regulation, Pierce Pluemer added the fourth goal of the night for his team. After continuing to trail the rest of the way, Dan Wildfong pulled O’Brien with minutes to go. The tactic would lead to no success though and Sjodahl became just the fourth player this season to record 25 goals.
When the final buzzer sounded, the Jacks left the ice with a 5-2 win.
Conor O’Brien suffers just his fifth regulation loss of the season in the deficit. His overall record is now 11-5-3-2.
It’ll be a week of rest and recovery for the team before they return to home ice next Friday against the Topeka RoadRunners. It’s Topeka’s first trip to North Richland Hills this season and due to the high animosity during the season series in Kansas, it’s bound to be a good one. Tickets are on sale now atop your screen, over the phone at 817-336-4ICE, or at the box office.