Amarillo, TX – The New Year’s Eve party got rolling a little early as the Odessa Jackalopes (19-11-2-1) offense came to play in a 5-2 outing over the Amarillo Bulls (11-13-4-3). The Jackalopes finished off a three-game sweep on Sunday night to kick off their six-games in nine-night road trip.
Amarillo got on the board first as they netted a shorthanded goal off of a 2-on-1 breakaway. An Odessa shot got blocked and rocketed down the ice where Brett Abdelnour fed Alex Borowiec 7:24 into the first period. Amarillo has now taken the first lead in all five games in the season series.
In a period that mimicked Saturday night, Matt Brown netted the tying goal with 56 seconds remaining in the first period. Tic-Tac-Toe passing after Eric Huss’s hard forecheck paid off. Huss found Blake Bride as Bride passed to the slot for Brown’s one-timer.
A scoreless second period made sure everyone was in for a good third period. The Jacks would go on to outscore the Bulls in the final 20 minutes of play. Ricky Carballo netted the go-ahead goal only 1:01 into the first period as he took a shot while getting knocked to the ice.
Just under three minutes later, Evan Somoza found a hole through Trevor Micucci and buried it for his team-leading 14th goal of the season, and third in the last three games. Matt Brown would net one more for his fourth on the weekend two minutes later as well.
After Brown’s goal, tensions started to bubble as we had six players ejected throughout the rest of the match. Evan Somoza and Nikita Sokolov squared off right after Brown’s goal before being sent off. Later on, Noah Poindexter tied up with Alex Borowiec, and Joey Rosa went protecting Petr Miko after a dirty cross-check from Steven Ipri, sending Rosa and Ipri to the showers early.
Amarillo netted a power play goal late in the period, but Viktor Johansson would silence the critiques with a tip-in past Micucci to seal the deal with only 95 ticks of the clock remaining.
Camarre stood on his head, making 45 saves in the win, while Micucci made 25 stops in his south debut. The Jackalopes penalty kill was 6-7 on the night as well.
Odessa will take a couple days to rest before returning to game action in Topeka on January 4-6 against the Roadrunners, looking to stay perfect through the six games in nine-day span.
If you can’t make it out to the games, make sure to catch all the action live on Classic Rock 102 and Hockeytv.com.
The 2017-2018 Odessa Jackalopes single game tickets are on sale now! To reserve your seats, contact the Jackalopes’ ticket office today at 432-552-7825 or hop on to www.jackalopes.org for more information.
Also, be sure to follow the Jackalopes on Twitter and Facebook (@LetsGoJacks), Instagram (odessajackalopes), and add us on Snapchat (odessajacks) all year long.
— ODESSA JACKALOPES —
