CORPUS CHRISTI, TX – Two early period goals by Ben Greiner and Evan Schmidbauer propelled the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees to a 2-1 victory over the Corpus Christi IceRays on Friday night in front of 2,956 fans inside the American Bank Center. Jake Durflinger scored the lone ‘Rays goal to tie the game on the power-play late in the second frame.
In the first period the teams combined for just 14 shots as the IceRays were outshot 9-5 by Rio Grande Valley. Corpus Christi was able to kill off both power-plays that the Killer Bees had in the opening frame.
In the second period Rio Grande Valley struck first as Ben Greiner moved down the right wing wall and let go a hard wrist shot that went over the right shoulder of IceRays goaltender Forbes Ploszaj. The goal came just 21 seconds into the second frame and was Greiner’s team leading 13th of the year with assists from Jared Dedenbach and Ian Janco.
After it looked like the Killer Bees would go into the 2nd intermission with a 1-0 lead, the IceRays got a power-play opportunity and converted. Caleb O’Brien fed a gorgeous pass through traffic right onto the stick of Jake Durflinger who let go a wrister at the bottom of the right wing circle that beat Killer Bees goaltender Nick Schmit top shelf over the left shoulder to tie the game up 1-1 with just 2:34 remaining. The lone assist was credited to O’Brien on Durflinger’s 9th goal of the season.
After 40min of play, the Killer Bees had a 19-14 shot lead over the IceRays.
Another early period goal for Rio Grande Valley proved to be the game winner of a rebound. Anthony Croston fired a shot on net that was originally stopped by Ploszaj however the rebound was sitting right in front of the crease for the taking. Evan Schmidbauer came down and fired the puck through Ploszaj for his 11th of the year with the assists going to Croston and JB Baker.
Corpus Christi had a late power-play but could not convert with the goalie pulled and the Killer Bees escaped with a 2-1 victory.. Final shots on net were 31 for Rio Grande Valley and 26 for Corpus Christi. Forbes Ploszaj denied 29 of 31 shots.
The IceRays are on the road tomorrow night as they battle the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees inside State Farm Arena. Puck drops at 7:05PM, coverage begins at 6:50PM with the IceRays Pregame Show on 91.1FM KSGR, ksgr.org, sportsjuice.com, ustream.com, and fasthockey.com.
Stay current with the latest team news by visiting www.goicerays.com. In addition stay connected with the IceRays on Facebook (/corpuschristiicerays), Twitter (@goicerays), and the team’s Youtube channel ICERAYS TV (@goicerays)
