Rangers shatter Phantom win skein

By Greg Gulas

The Phantoms face Motor City Machine tonight at the Chevrolet Centre.

BOARDMAN — Aaron Pietila’s two goals and a solid effort in net by Kevin Kissaw helped lift the Marquette Rangers to a 5-2 victory over the Mahoning Valley Phantoms in a NAHL North Division Showcase game Saturday at the Ice Zone.

The win shattered Mahoning Valley’s five-game winning streak, and knocked the team out of first place in the North Division.

The Phantoms will conclude Showcase play tonight when they entertain the Motor City Machine at 6 p.m. at the Chevrolet Centre.

After a scoreless first period in which the Rangers (10-11-4, 24 points) outshot the Phantoms (14-5-2, 30 points), 14-3, it took just 53 seconds into the second frame for the game’s first tally when Kevin Gravel and Collin Saint-Onge assisted Garrett Ladd on his fourth goal of the season for a 1-0 Marquette advantage.

Not to be outdone, the Rangers’ Dustin Partacz then led Michael Thompson with a perfect pass for his fifth goal of the year just 61 seconds later as Marquette raced to a two goal lead just 1:52 after intermission.

Looking for some much needed offense, the Phantoms then turned to Kyle Verbeek, who registered his fourth goal of the year with the help of both Nick Shkrel and Alex Lippincott as Mahoning Valley cut the Marquette lead in half, 2-1.

The Rangers continued their offensive onslaught as they outshot the Phantoms in the period, 16-11 to hold a 30-14 shot advantage after the first 40 minutes of play.

What Mahoning Valley didn’t want to happen at the outset of the final period is exactly what did happen as Marquette scored two quick goals for a 4-1 advantage and never really looked back the rest of the way.

Chad Pietila found the Phantom net off a Reed Rushing pass at 2:18 of the final period for a 3-1 Rangers lead and when brother, Aaron, notched his eighth goal of the year at the 4:02 mark, Marquette increased their lead to three goals.

Mahoning Valley’s Jordy Trottier’s notched his eighth goal of the season at 15:33 to cut the Rangers advantage to 4-2, but it was too little took late as Aaron Pietila closed out the scoring with his second goal of the period and his ninth of the season with just 27 seconds remaining in the contest.

In Showcase games earlier in the day, Traverse City (14-3-3, 31 points) outshot Alpena, 28-17, en-route to a 3-2 victory over the Ice Diggers as they moved back into sole possession of first-place in the North Division.

Goals by Josh Miller, Nathan Urbaniak and Marc Thompson for the North Stars offset tallies by Sam Cheraso and Mike DeGrazia for Alpena.

The upset of the day, however, came when the Motor City Machine (5-19-0, 10 points) stunned the league’s best team record-wise, the St. Louis Bandits, 5-3.

The Machine, trailing 3-1 heading to the final period and outshot by the Bandits, 45-25 in the game, used four unanswered goals, including two by Jake Friedman to secure the victory.