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Monday, February 19, 2001
C.C. scores big win over Austin
IceRays send struggling Ice Bats to second place with 2-1 victory
Austin American-Statesman
AUSTIN - It was not supposed to be Corpus Christi's day. Goalie Brad Erbsland was making his first professional start; defenseman David Bourque had twisted his ankle before the game; and Austin was 7-2 in the season series, including a blowout victory the previous Sunday that snapped a three game winless streak.
Now, though, Austin has a three-game losing streak. Two first-period goals were all the IceRays needed to ground the Bats, prevailing, 2-1, before 5,593 disappointed fans.
Jonathan Forest stopped 35 shots as the hard-luck loser. Erbsland was not tested quite so much, but the rookie made some breathtakingly larcenous saves when the game was on the line.
Austin's loss, combined with Bossier-Shreveport's win over New Mexico, drops the Bats (34 18-4, 72 points) to second place in the WPHL East for the first time since January 9. Corpus Christi (30-22-3, 63 points) is fourth.
The home team played better than it had in its two previous defeats.
But Austin had trouble generating offense, let its goalie bear the load and, most of all, allowed the opposition to take the early lead. The Bats, 6-11-3 when trailing after the first period, have won just once when trailing after two.
"We're not playing with confidence," defenseman Daniel Tetrault said. "We're thinking too much. We get down a goal and say, 'here we go again.' You can't think like that."
Corpus trapped the Bats in its own end on several occasions in the first, eventually forcing Jeff Kungle to take an obstruction-holding penalty. When Ice Ray Dustin McArthur locked up Derek Nicolson at the left boards, Jeff Paluseo took a free path to the net for the power play goal at 13:33.
The Rays made it 2-0 on an odd man rush, Layne Roland banging home the rebound of Kurt Wickenheiser's shot at 16:33. It was a perfect example of the little moments that can sink a struggling club-a month ago, the rebound would have been cleared, if the two-on one had even happened in the first place.
"When things are going good you get the bounces, you get the breaks," Bats coach Brent Hughes said. "Right now thing aren't going good. We're just not the team that we were a few weeks ago. We're giving up good chances in our own end, which we haven't done before. We're losing battles. I'm not blaming anyone [in the dressing room], but we're not getting the effort we need."
Forest, who has started four of the last five games and finished the other one, dominated the second period. That allowed a pinching Tetrault to get the Bats back in the contest at 9:45. Brett Seguin and David Brosseau did the work down low to set him up.
At 12:47 of the third, Erbsland made a spectacular slide to eat up Ryan Anderson's point blank tap-in, then outdid himself with less than five minutes to go by flytrapping an airborne Roger Lewis shot. Lewis's top-shelf rebound chance was so gilt-edged that several thousand fans were already on their feet to celebrate as the puck disappeared into Erbsland's glove.
"Tonight we worked hard, we just weren't able to score when we needed to," Jeff Kungle said. "But it's better that we go through this now, rather than the first week of April. It's going to make us a better team come playoff time."
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© 2001,
a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.
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