Thunderbirds roar back with eight goals against Binghamton on Saturday night
Winston-Salem, NC – After suffering a 5-2 loss in the inaugural Binghamton-Carolina game on Friday night, the Thunderbirds poured pucks into the net for an 8-3 victory Saturday. Three different Thunderbirds had multi-goal games, and Jarett Meyer notched a career-high four points in the game.
Carolina forward Blake Peavey had gone over a month without finding the back of the net entering Saturday’s contest. He needed only two minutes of the first period to end the slide, burying a shot past Owen Liskiewicz for the game’s opening goal. Three minutes later, Tommy Cardinal floated a shot from the right circle past Liskiewicz on the power play. Tyler Gjurich got Binhamton on the board later in the period, but Gus Ford capped the first off with a powerplay goal. Dawson Baker fed him a pass at the blue line from the Thunderbirds’ zone, and Carolina’s leading scorer split two defenders before snapping a shot between the Binghamton goaltender’s pads.
The second period was a scoreless one for over 18 minutes. In the interim, plenty of skirmishes occurred. After Mathieu Boislard and Joe Cangelosi dropped the gloves in the first period, an inadvertent high stick by Nikita Ivashkin on Dawson Baker ignited a potent one-on-one rivalry. It soon began to draw in other players, with Jacob Schnapp and Boislard being brought into later scrums. Finally, it was Gus Ford who broke through again. Skating down the right wing, Ford found a small gap between Liskiewicz and the short-side goal post for the 4-1 lead.
Binghamton looked to begin a comeback in the third period, as Tyler Gjurich beat Chris Paulin over the glove with a long-range snapshot, brought on by a clean faceoff win. Then, Josh Newberg flicked a powerplay goal past Paulin from a steep angle, drawing the gap to just one goal, 4-3. Nathan Campbell had been holding his return-to-Carolina goal in his back pocket for over a week and decided to pull it out just a minute later. Not only did he deflect a Jarett Meyer shot past Chris Marsillo, who relieved Liskiewicz for the 3rd period, but also fired a shot past the Binghamton goaltender’s blocker for the 6-3 lead minutes later. John Buttitta would clean up a rebound and Tommy Cardinal capped the 8-3 win off with a shorthanded empty net goal.
Chris Paulin finished the night with 41 saves on 44 shots, Jarett Meyer tallied four assists, and Gus Ford, Tommy Cardinal and Nathan Campbell all had multi-goal games. The rubber match between these budding rivals is set for 4:05pm in Winston-Salem on Sunday evening.