CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Shreveport Mudbugs spoiled the party Thursday morning, coming back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Corpus Christi IceRays, 5-3, in front of 6,628 fans in attendance at the IceRays’ school day game presented by MD Anderson and Gloria Hicks at American Bank Center.
The game was tied at both the first intermission, 1-1, and second intermission, 3-3, before Shreveport tallied the only two goals of the third period. The Mudbugs outshot the IceRays by a 48-41 margin.
Corpus Christi’s Blake Bennett opened the scoring at 9:06 of the first period, notching a one-timer on the glove side to record his team-leading 19th goal of the season.
The Mudbugs responded with a rebound goal from Jack Jaunich in the final minute of the opening frame.
The IceRays regained the lead at 1:13 of the second period when Nicholas Seitz fed a pass to Santeri Hartikainen, who fired a shot home for his 18th tally of the season. Seitz then picked up another primary assist under two minutes later, setting up Matthew Headland at the top of the crease as Corpus Christi went up 3-1.
Shreveport once again had the answer as Gueorgui Feduolov (14:55) and Tim Clifton (15:12) scored 17 seconds apart.
The Mudbugs grabbed their first lead of the game 11 minutes into the third period when Carson Nichols tipped a shot in on the backhand for his first career NAHL goal, and the eventual game-winning goal. Ethan Harrison then registered his Mudbugs-leading 18th goal of the season at 16:18 to secure the two-goal win for the visitors.
The crowd of nearly 6,700 fans marked the largest attendance of all North American Hockey League games this season, and the largest IceRays crowd at American Bank Center since the regular season finale from two seasons ago–April 8, 2017 (6,733).
The two teams rematch Friday night at 7:05 PM in the IceRays’ Heart Night game presented by AutoNation and Cable ONE. Corpus Christi will wear special red, heart-themed jerseys which will be available for fans to bid on in a post-game jersey auction. Proceeds from the jersey auction, as well as a silent auction in the American Bank Center Arena concourse, will benefit the American Heart Association.
Single game tickets, group tickets and suites for the remainder of the 2018-19 IceRays season are on sale now. Visit goicerays.com or call 361-814-PUCK (7825) for tickets or more information. Stay connected with the IceRays on Facebook (/CorpusChristiIceRays), Twitter (@goicerays) and Instagram (CorpusChristiIceRays). IceRays games are carried live on Sportsradio Corpus Christi (1230 AM/95.1 FM/96.1 FM), HockeyTV and Mixlr with the pre-game show starting 15 minutes prior to faceoff. For more information, visit goicerays.com/broadcast.
