Amarillo, TX— The Jackalopes trailed 3-1 entering the third period, but four unanswered goals in the third period (including two by James Crossman) gave the Jackalopes a 5-3 victory on the road against the rival Amarillo Bulls on Friday night at the Budweiser Bull Pen at the Amarillo Civic Center.
The Jackalopes started the game on the right foot, buzzing early and getting several quality chances on Bulls netminder Jason Grande. However, it was Amarillo that stuck first on a power-play goal. The Jackalopes, down 1-0 found themselves soon after shorthanded again.
But they managed to score a short-handed goal thanks to Jack Conroy who scored his first goal as a member of the Odessa Jackalopes to tie the game 1-1. However, the Bulls struck back 55 seconds later off a deflection of a point shot that found its way passed Alex Cammare and made it 2-1 Amarillo.
In the second period, the Jackalopes had some quality chances to tie the game, including a five-on-three power play that lasted for over a minute. Instead it was the Bulls who extended their lead to 3-1 after Logan Jenuwine extended his point and goal scoring streak to nine and four games respectively.
In the third period though, it was all Jackalopes as they took the play to Amarillo. Connor Smith scored after he received a quick feed from below the goal line to pull the Jackalopes within one.
A few minutes later, Michael Sacco tied the game at 3-3. A feed from the near corner found Sacco in front and Sacco took several jabs at the loose puck in front. On the third try, Sacco was able to stuff the puck below Grande to tie the game.
Two minutes later the Jackalopes’ Michael Sacco sent a pass below the goal line to Smith, Smith the fed it up the wall to the point to Brendan Coughlin who looked off a pass to Sacco, faked a drive and in one motion sent a hard pass over to Crossman who ripped a one-timer in behind Grande to give the Jacks their first lead of the game with about five minutes to play.
Crossman added an empty-net-goal with less than two minutes to go to secure the win for the Jacks.
With the win, the Jackalopes have given Amarillo their last two losses and with the win tonight, they handed Amarillo their first regulation loss since October 20. With a new record of 13-19-0-1 the Jacks will close out the series with the Bulls (25-4-2-2) on Saturday night at 7:05 pm.
