Corpus Christi, Texas – The Corpus Christi IceRays fell to the Shreveport Mudbugs 7-2 Saturday night in the finale of a three-game weekend series at American Bank Center.
The Mudbugs came out the aggressor early and forced the attack throughout en route to their third straight win over the IceRays as Corpus Christi dropped to 3-7-1, 1SOL against Shreveport in the 11 games this season after going 0-8 a year ago.
Brayden Cook collected a hat trick with three goals for Shreveport, while Colin Vassallo, Nick Marino, Liam Fleet and Andrej Paricka each added a goal.
Troy Pelton and Carter Krenke netted the goals for the IceRays.
The Mudbugs outshot the IceRays 51-25 and 17-4 in the first period.
“We just got outplayed, simple,” IceRays Head Coach Sylvain Cloutier said.
Corpus Christi is now 2-5-0, 0SOL in its last six contests and 5-7-0, 1SOL in its last 13 games.
Overall, the IceRays are now 14-25-1, 3SOL for 32 points, in eighth place in the NAHL South Division, eight points behind the Odessa Jackalopes for seventh, following the Jackalopes 5-2 loss against the New Mexico Ice Wolves, and 17 points behind the Oklahoma Warriors for sixth. Oklahoma fell to the Lone Star Brahmas 9-2.
Shreveport is in second place in points with a record of 31-11-0, 2SOL for 64 points, four points ahead of the El Paso Rhinos, and seven points behind the division-leading Lone Star Brahmas.
The Mudbugs broke the ice with a pair of goals 1:10 apart as Vassallo got his tenth goal of the season at 8:30. Cook scored his tenth at 9:40 and Shreveport enjoyed a 2-0 lead after one period.
Cook scored his second of the night and 11th of the season at 4:53 to give the Mudbugs a 3-0 lead.
Pelton got the IceRays on the board with his second tally in as many nights from Zach Homer and Derek Pietrzyk at 8:13.
Shreveport came right back on Marino’s 16th goal of the year at 12:06 to make it 4-1 Mudbugs after two periods.
Cook completed the hat trick with his 12th goal 58 seconds into the third period.
Krenke got the IceRays a little closer with his third goal from Nikita Konevych at 11:58.
But Fleet came right back with his fourth goal of the year less than a minute later at 12:46.
Paricka closed out the scoring with his fourth goal at 17:56.
The IceRays and Mudbugs will continue their rivalry with a pair of games on Friday, February 16 and Saturday night, February 17 at 7:11 p.m. CST at the Georges Pond Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport, Louisiana.
You can watch the games on nahltv.com.
For more information, visit goicerays.com.
