Saturday, May 21, 2011

Saints Offense Explodes, Win Game Three

Press Release

An offensive outburst by the Saints in the second period propelled them to a victory in Game Three and one win away from capturing the Clark Cup.

The opportunities were limited in the first period, but Grant Arnold finally broke through when he jammed in a rebound to give the Gamblers a 1-0 with less than four minutes to play in the first period. Dubuque out-shot Green Bay 11-6 but went into the break down by a goal.

The Saints would even the game midway through the second period when Tony Larson took a nifty pass from Shane Sooth to score his third goal of the playoffs. The goal by Larson, who had two goals in 47 regular season games, ignited the Saints offense as they would scored two more goals over the next 1:33 of play. Some outstanding tape-to-tape passing led to the second goal of the playoffs for defenseman Joakim Ryan and just 29 seconds later, Tyler Lundey scored his first USHL playoff goal to give Dubuque a 3-1 advantage.

All the momentum was in Dubuque’s favor and Riley Barber continued that run with his second postseason goal just over two minutes into the third. The goal marked the end of the night for starting Gamblers goaltender Ryan McKay as Adam Wilcox would finish the period in net. Green Bay would strike late in the period as C.J. Eick fired in his third playoff goal, but the night belonged to the home team as they gave the standing room only crowd of 3,140 plenty to cheer about.

Dubuque goaltender Matt Morris made 18 saves to record his eighth postseason win. The teams will face-off again in less than 24 hours for Game Four on Saturday in Dubuque.

(Nathan can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)

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