Phantoms fall again to Buccaneers

Staff report

DES MOINES, IOWA

In his USHL debut, Youngstown Phantoms goaltender Ryan Bednard stopped 32 shots.

It wasn’t enough as the Des Moines Buccaneers rallied for a 4-3 victory on Sunday.

“Ryan Bednard was great in net,” Phantoms head coach Noreen said. “I thought he was calm and steady, and you never would have known that it was his first USHL game.”

On Saturday, the Phantoms lost to the Buccaneers by the same score. Colin DeAugustine, who was in goal in Friday’s win over the Chicago Steel, took that loss.

Buccaneers defenseman Corey Schueneman scored the winning goal with about six minutes remaining..

“The speed was definitely an adjustment, but the team played well in front of me,” Bednard said. “The team was great and they were all supporting me.

“Obviously I would have liked to get the win, but I was seeing the puck well and thought I had a pretty good game.”

Forwards Ryan Lomberg, Bryan Lemos, and James Winkler scored for the Phantoms,

The Buccaneers got on the scoreboard first, midway through the opening period, when forward Patrick Grasso beat Bednard.

The Phantoms evened the game up a few minutes later when forward Kyle Connor fed Lomberg on a 2-on-1, and Lomberg tossed a backhander over the shoulder of Buccaneer goaltender Ryan Ruck.

The Phantoms pulled ahead about five minutes later when Connor entered the offensive zone on a 2-on-1 rush and sent a pass over to Winkler who scored on the high-blocker side.

“I’d just come off the bench and Kyle was breaking down the left side and saw me on the far right and gave it right to me and I was able to go high blocker side,” Winkler said. “It’s great to get back at it and help the team out.

“It’s too bad that we couldn’t get the win today, but we all played well.”

The Phantoms pushed the lead to 3-1 early in the second period when Lemos threw a centering pass from the near corner that deflected off of the back of Ruck’s leg and into the net, chasing Ruck from the game.

Ryan Pashovitz stopped all 19 shots he faced to earn the win.

The Buccaneers pulled to within a goal when forward Ryan Dmowski scored at the 8:49 mark. They tied it early in the third period on a goal from defenseman Chandler Lindstrand.

“I thought our effort was much better tonight,” Noreen said. “We definitely didn’t look like a team playing its third game in three days.

“I thought we competed hard, and there is not a lot of finger pointing that I can do as far as guys who played bad or things in our system that were off. It was a good, hard fought hockey game, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes.”