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Phantoms win with big third period
Five Youngstown players netted goals
By BRIAN DZENIS
YOUNGSTOWN
Taking five of six points against the USHL’s best team? The Youngstown Phantoms will take it.
The team continued its run of success against the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders, beating the league’s top squad 6-3 after a decisive third period.
The Phantoms previously beat the the RoughRiders and took an overtime loss against them at the end of January.
Tied at 3 entering the third, Yushiro Hirano almost had the game won less than 30 seconds in, but his shot from the slot struck metal instead of net. Four minutes later, center Cam Morrison put in the go-ahead goal off a pass from Chase Pearson.
Pearson, who is tied with Hirano as the team’s second-leading scorer with nine goals and 24 assists, found himself ejected from the game after he exchanged punches with Cedar Rapids’ Matt Filipe.
Fights are rare in the USHL because it’s a combined 15-minute penalty, plus that player gets a one-game suspension.
As an omen, Phantoms coach John Wroblewski spent the previous evening talking about Pearson’s fighting prowess with the player’s father.
“He has skill, but he can use that part of the game to get himself some respect,” Wroblewski said. “You give a guy some whacks and then you get some extra feet to operate.
“When it happened I wasn’t pleased, but I was confident with the team. Every other guy going tonight was on his game.”
Shortly after the fight, Hirano scored off a rebound to give his team a two-goal lead. East Palestine native Matt Miller scored an empty-netter during the final two minutes.
The true breakout performance of the night came earlier in the game. Center Jason Cotton doubled his season output for goals with two on the night. The first he grabbed less than a minute into the game and the second was a power-play goal in the second.
“I got shots on net. The plan was to get pucks on net,” Cotton said. “There was traffic and it definitely paid off.”
Cotton has four goals and two assists through 12 games with the Phantoms. He was a recent addition to the team from the college hockey ranks. He was unhappy with Northeastern “from a hockey standpoint” and needed a new start, Cotton said.
“I needed a better situation as a player and a person and so far, it’s definitely been a good move on my part,” Cotton said. “College hockey is good hockey, but the USHL is a really good league.”
Another newcomer, defenseman Ryan Shea, found the net in the second period for the first goal of his USHL career.
Cedar Rapids’ Zac Robbins scored two goals, one to match Cotton’s first-period goal and a short-handed tally in the second period that gave the RoughRiders their only lead before Shea’s equalizer. In between Robbins’ two goals was one from Ben Foley.
After a one-day break today, the Phantoms will face off with the RoughRiders again at 3:05 p.m. on Sunday before another weekend homestand against the Bloomington Thunder. Pearson will be unavailable due to a one-game suspension.