JACKSONVILLE, Fla – The Jacksonville Icemen faced the Greenville Swamp Rabbits Saturday night, in the second of back-to-back games. Jacksonville held their ‘Hockey Is For All’ night, with painted logos on the ice and specialty HOPE jerseys. Jacksonville took the win to split the weekend series with a 4-3 victory in a Shootout.
The Icemen would get on the board first on a goal from Chris Grando at the 7:08 mark of the first period. Veteran player Jerry D’Amigo made it a 2-0 game on a feed from Olivier Nadeau at the 9:18 mark. Greenville drew within one, with a power play goal tipped in by Ben Freeman at the 11:21 mark. Three minutes later, a slapshot by Luc Brown gave Jacksonville a 3-1 lead.
Greenville’s Joe Leahy tipped the puck in at the 8:21 mark of the second period, to make it a 3-2 game. In the closing minutes of the third period, Greenville pulled Jacob Ingham from the net, for the extra attacker. This paid off, with Tanner Eberle tying the game up with 48 seconds left on the clock to force overtime.
Jacksonville started the OT period with over three minutes of power play time, carried over from a double minor high sticking call in the last minute of the third period. A power-play goal by Brandon Fortunato was ruled no goal after a video review deemed there was goaltender interference. Jacksonville held Greenville to no shots on goal in OT, but with a scoreless period it went to the shootout. Jacksonville’s Matt Vernon turned away two of the three shots faced, with Matheson Iacopelli and Logan Cockerill both, scoring to give Jacksonville the OT shootout win.
Check out this photo gallery from Inside The Rink’s Andrew Fielder, for highlights from the game.
