Phantoms drop opener

Staff report

Sioux City, Iowa

The Youngstown Phantoms dropped their opening contest of the 2010 season with a 5-1 loss to the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the Fall Classic.

The RoughRiders (1-0) capitalized on three of the 13 Phantom penalties. Head coach Curtis Carr said the team cannot earn costly penalty minutes against a good team.

“Cedar [Rapids] is one of the better teams in the league,” he said. “I think five-on-five we out played them. What hurt us today were the penalties. People say, ‘lazy penalties are hard to kill,’ and we took some lazy, bad penalties and it hurt us.”

Team Captain Adam Berkle agreed with Carr’s comments about the Phantoms ability to control play when both teams were at even strength.

“Five-on-five we took it to them,” said Berkle. “For most of the game, we played really hard and we played well down low. Penalties are what killed us today, and they took advantage of their chances.”

Outside of penalties, Carr believes that his team is still adjusting to the new systems he has put in place.

“Guys are new to our system,” he said. “Right now, they are thinking instead of reacting during the course of the game. I felt that there were periods of today’s game where we did dominate play and where we did play well within our systems.”

The Phantoms will play three games in three days while in Sioux City. The team will lace up the skates today against the Stampede of Sioux Falls at the Tyson Event Center.

The puck drops at 4 p.m.