RHINOS' RALLY HIGHLIGHTS FIRST DAY OF SHOWCASE

RHINOS RALLY HIGHLIGHTS FIRST DAY OF SHOWCASE

Games of December 18:

CASPER 7, MEADOW LAKE 6—Shane Hounsell scored four goals for Meadow Lake, but the Casper Bobcats came back from a 6-3 deficit to beat the Mustangs, 7-6.  Six different players scored for the Bobcats including Daniel Silar, who had two goals—one of them being the game-winner with 3:55 left in the second half.  Hounsell has now scored 14 goals in his first eight games since joining the Mustangs.

SAN DIEGO 5, CPJHL BLACK 1—Five different San Diego skaters scored and Marshall McKillip turned aside 21 of 22 shots as the Sabers defeated the CPJHL Black squad, 5-1.  San Diego’s Isaiah Frankel scored the only goal in the game’s first 23:38, but Jakub Vesely’s tally with 1:22 left in the first half gave San Diego a little lift going into halftime.

DALLAS 4, CPJHL RED 3—Jasa Jenko’s goal 1:09 into the second half opened up a three-goal lead for the Dallas.  Brett Machin scored twice in the second half for the CPJHL Red team to get them within a goal, but the Snipers held on for a 4-3 win.  Igor Litvinenko had a pair of assists for Dallas and Ethan James made 23 of his 32 saves in the first half for the CPJHL team.

NORTHERN COLORADO 7, SEATTLE 3—Northern Colorado’s Nikita Sheberov scored twice in a six-goal first half for the Eagles, paving the way for a 7-3 win over the Seattle Totems.  The Eagles were leading, 6-0, when Dominik Basek finally got the Totems on the board with just :04 left on the clock before halftime.  Seattle actually won the second half, 2-1, but the hole was far to deep for Seattle to dig out of at that point.  No Northern Colorado skater scored more than three points as the Eagles spread the scoring around.  Cam Gross assisted on two of the three Seattle tallies.

WICHITA 5, COLD LAKE 2—Five different Wichita skaters lit the lamp and Elis Ericson stopped 28 of 30 shots as the Jr. Thunder defeated the Cold Lake Wings, 5-2.  Wichita jumped out to a 2-0 lead only to see the Wings come back to tie it before the half.  Two more Wichita goals, by Braeden Thomas at 2:31, and Erik Back at 5:14, restored the two-goal lead for the Jr. Thunder and Cold Lake was unable to stage another comeback against Wichita and Ericson, who stopped all nine shots he faced in the second half.

EL PASO 8, EDSON 4—The defending Thorne Cup champion El Paso Rhinos picked up the three points, and showed that they are still an elite team, but the Edson Aeros of the WSHL’s new Provincial Division made a statement—a big one—in an 8-4 El Paso win.  The Aeros had leads of 3-0 and 4-1, but the Rhinos were not going to knocked off their perch that easily and came back with a vengeance—scoring four times in a span of 5:46 to take the lead.  Edson  netminder Liam Austin stopped 26 of 27 shots in the first half, but could not keep the Rhinos at bay all game.  John Erramousepe and Justin Cole-Dubecky each had two goals and an assist for El Paso.

OGDEN 3, FRESNO 0—Artur Ogandzhanyan posted a 20-save shutout as the Ogden Mustangs defeated the Fresno Monsters, 3-0, in a battle of division leaders.  All three goals came in the first half—two of them in the final 6:29 of the frame—and Fresno out-shot Ogden 9-7 in a scoreless second half.  The Mustangs maintained their 19-point lead at the top of the Mountain Division while the Monsters missed a chance to build one their slim one-point advantage over second-place Long Beach in the Western Division.

UTAH 8, BELLINGHAM 2—The Utah Outliers broke loose for six goas in the second half to beat the Northwest Division-leading Bellingham Blazers, 8-2.  Reese Tambellini, Matt Bartel and Nicholas Ness all had two goals in the game for Utah and Jan Dvorak picked up three assists.  Outliers netminder Oscar Wahlgren stopped 12 of 13 shots in the first half and finished the game with 18 saves.  It was 2-1 Utah at halftime, but the Outliers struck for the next five goals to open up a 7-1 lead.  The last three goals of that run came in a span of just 49 seconds.

THREE STARS OF THE DAY 

For Tuesday, Dec. 18

#1 STAR

F Shane Hounsell

Meadow Lake Mustangs

5’10”, 170 pounds

Meadow Lake, SK / 1999

4 goals + 1 assist

7-6 loss vs. Casper

14-11-25 in just 8 GP

#2 STAR

G Artur Ogandzhanyan

Ogden Mustangs

5’11”, 185 pounds

Kharkov, Ukraine / 2000

20-save shutout

3-0 win over Fresno

13-0-1, 1.94, .931

#3 STAR

D Karel Kankovsky

San Diego Sabers

5’10”, 200 pounds

Jihlava, Czech Rep. / 1998

1 goal + 2 assists

5-1 win over CPJHL Black

13-21-34 in 26 GP