Texas Brahmas pull out a win against AmarilloThe Texas Brahmas won a close contest against the Amarillo Gorillas last night, taking a 4-3 win despite a strong effort by the Gorillas throughout the evening.
The Gorillas took the first lead in the game at the 2:05 mark when defenseman Nick Theriault, assisted by Jason Weitzel and Sam Ftorek, ripped a slapshot over Brett Jaeger's shoulder, taking advantage of the first Amarillo powerplay due to a hooking call against the Brahmas' Aaron Davis. Hooking was the penalty of the night as both teams combined were called 10 times for the infraction.
The Brahmas evened the score when forward Scott Sheppard, just activated for tonight's game, deflected a Justin Kinnunen centering pass behind Amarillo goaltender Ryan Scott to tie the game at one at the 5:43 mark. Kevin McLeod was also in on the assist during the power play.
Halfway through the period, the Brahmas went back on the powerplay and with just two seconds left on the man-advantage, forward Marc Belanger rushed the puck behind Scott to give the Brahmas a 2-1 lead. It was Belanger's third goal of the season. The Gorillas answered with another powerplay goal of their own when forward Joe Guenther took a cross-crease pass from Luke Lynes and placed it behind Brett Jaeger to even the score at 2-2. All four goals in the first period were made on the powerplay. The Brahmas were outshot 16-11 but despite allowing two goals, Brett Jaeger managed some great saves.
The Gorillas took the lead early in the third period when center Stuart MacRae, waived by the Brahmas after training camp, took a feed from Nick Theriault off the right wing boards and punched a backhand just under the outstretched arm of Brett Jaeger to give the Gorillas their final lead of the game at 3-2.
The Brahmas scored on a powerplay less than two minutes later when forward Aaron Davis netted his first goal of the season off of an assist by Gran Jacobsen and Kevin McLeod. Brett Jaeger fended off the attacking Gorillas for 16 minutes until Brahmas forward Pete Rouleau scored his first of the season with the assist by Mike Vellinga and Lance Galbraith.
It was all Brett Jaeger in the third period, despite a valiant effort by the Gorillas to try and even the game up. Jaeger stopped all 16 shots, including three that would've gone in in the last minute or so were it not for the athletic and sometimes miraculous play of the Brahmas netminder.
Brett Jaeger had 39 saves in a night when the Gorillas outshot the Brahmas 42-32. The win moves Jaeger to 2-0-0 on the season.
Defenseman Kevin McLeod was dynamic throughout the contest and added three more assists to bring him to five in three games played.
The Gorillas fall to 0-3-0 and face the undefeated Colorado Eagles tonight at home.
The Brahmas, 2-1-0, travel back to North Richland Hills for a re-match against their pre-season foe, the Odessa Jackalopes. The Game starts at 7:05pm.
Photo Credit: Robert Keith
1 comment:
Good call Robert. Hope you got to see it in person. A bunch of us fans only saw it at a distance via Nifty TV. I too think Jags was the star.
Post a Comment