Corpus Christi, Texas – It was a tough night for the Corpus Christi IceRays against a team they’ve gotten quite familiar with.
The IceRays fell to the Shreveport Mudbugs 5-1 Friday Night at American Bank Center.
It’s the second straight win for the Mudbugs over the IceRays as Corpus Christi dropped to 3-6-1, 1SOL against Shreveport in the 10 games this season after going 0-8 a year ago.
Nick Marino scored a pair of goals for Shreveport, while Liam Fleet, Ryan Burke and Carter McKay each added a goal.
Troy Pelton scored the goal for The IceRays.
“We had a decent first period, a terrible second and played really well for the first seven minutes of the third,” IceRays head coach Sylvain Cloutier said. “We had spurts where we played well and that’s it. Not good enough compared to the effort they gave last night.”
Corpus Christi is now 2-4-0, 0SOL in its last six contests and 5-6-0, 1SOL in its last 12 games.
Overall, the IceRays are now 14-24-1, 3SOL for 32 points, in eighth place in the NAHL South Division, eight points behind the Odessa Jackalopes for seventh, and 17 points behind the Oklahoma Warriors for sixth.
Shreveport is in second place in points with a record of 30-11-0, 2SOL for 62 points, four points ahead of the El Paso Rhinos, and seven points behind the division-leading Lone Star Brahmas.
The Mudbugs outshot the IceRays 39-24.
Neither team scored in the first period.
Fleet collected his third goal of the season at 8:25 of the second to put Shreveport on the board.
Marino netted his 15th of the year at 11:03 and the Mudbugs led 2-0 after two periods.
Burke added to the Shreveport lead with his 17th goal at 5:21 of the third.
Marino scored his second of the night and 16th of the year three minutes later at 8:21.
McKay added his fourth of the year to close out the Shreveport scoring at 11:30.
Pelton would score his first junior goal from Nikita Konevych and Ryan Jensen at 18:18 to close out the scoring.
“You can’t take a night off in this league,” Cloutier said.
The two teams will close out the three-game series Saturday night at 7:05 CST.
If you are unable to attend the game, you can watch it on nahltv.com and listen online on Brewster Street Radio.
For more information, visit goicerays.com.
