BATON ROUGE ZYDECO at DASHERS of DANVILLE
Dashers Crumble Late,
Tie Longest Losing Streak in League History
by Devin Dobek
Danville, IL - Now into the back half of the season, the Dashers needed to find ways to win and fast. In a game where they led 4 different times, Parker Rutherford’s 53 save effort would not be enough as an untimely penalty led to the demise of the Dashers.
Down to just 9 forwards and 4 defenseman dressed tonight, the Dashers would have their hands full against a prolific Zydeco offense. Before many could get to their seats, Zydeco goalie Brendan Colgan made a costly turnover to Yosuke Jumonji who set up Bo Zinchenko with an open net to make it 1-0 Dashers just 91 seconds in. The Dashers have had trouble protecting leads all season long, and everyone inside the David S. Palmer arena anxiously awaited to see how the next few minutes would unfold. It took just 6 minutes for Scott Shorrock to catch the Dasher D sleeping and rifle a wrister through the legs of Parker Rutherford. Tied at 1, tensions rose. Narek Aleksanyan took the games first penalty for roughing, and added an extra 2 minutes for delay of game when he and Braydon Crowe got involved with some extracurriculars. Crowe was also sent off for roughing but the Dashers went to the man advantage. On the power play, a Trey Fischer shot with purpose gave a juicy rebound to the captain Justin Brausen who snapped home his 5th of the season to put the Dashers back in front at 2-1. The horn sounded with the shots 18-11 in favor of the Zydeco but the score 2-1 Dashers.
With the lead heading into the second frame, the mission would be to protect it and add some more tallies for Steve Esau’s group. It took just over 100 seconds for the Zydeco to thwart that memo when Brodie Thornton blasted one past the glove of Rutherford on the first Zydeco power play to make it 2-2. Searching for a way to bounce back, Zac Horn fired a perfect pass off the pad of Brendan Colgan that found the awaiting stick of Lucas Rothe who fired the pill into the open net for his first as a Dasher to re-secure the 1-goal lead at 3-2. Another 12 minutes rolled by with the Zydeco turning up the heat in the shot department. The equalizer came when Narek Aleksanyan picked up a vacant puck on the doorstep of Rutherford’s cage and wrapped it home. The shots at the conclusion of period 2 were 40-23 in favor of Baton Rouge but a tie score set the stage for an exciting 3rd chapter on tap.
20 more minutes to snap the skid. Would the Dashers have it in them? The frame started on a positive note when Bo Zinchenko made a power move to the goal and muscled a snapshot past Colgan to make it 4-3 Dashers. 12 minutes to go. The turning point came when Jhuwon Davis was assessed a double-minor for high-sticking Chris Ciolek, opening up 4 minutes of power play time for one of the league’s best against the league’s worst kill. It took just 12 seconds for Kevin Szabad to find the five-hole and tie the game. Still on the powerplay, 54 more seconds ticked off before the Zydeco broke the deadlock on a Narek Aleksanyan missile to make it 5-4 with 6 minutes to go. A pair of empty-netters sealed the victory for Baton Rouge at 7-4 as the Dashers fell in heartbreaking fashion yet again. Parker Rutherford made 53 saves on 58 shots he faced in the losing effort. ...