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11/21 - Indiana finds a way to defeat South Park

Posted by Jeff Mauro on Nov 21 2001 at 04:00PM PST
INDIANA - Two of the 2001 PIHL AA Division champions squared off at the Indiana Ice Center in a rematch of an early season battle won by South Park, who went on the reach the Penguin Cup Semi-Finals. Indiana coach Ron Hellen knew that this Thanksgiving eve game would be huge in the AA playoff picture in March. The first period was sloppy as both teams mounted very little offense. In a harmless two on two sitution South Park's Matt Slogan tried to move a pass cross-ice, the puck glance off a Indiana defenseman's skate and behind Mike Lady to give South Park the opening goal. The period featured some fine goaltending by the Eagles Ian Episcopo, who thwarted several Indian chances. On to the second and while the Eagles maintain a 1-0 lead, Episcipo continued warding off a lot of Indiana opportunities. Then South Park made a mistake, as Corey Schaffer caught the Eagle defenseman pinching, he poked the puck past him and it was off to the races and beat Episcipo and the game was tied at 1-1. Then Bryan Schlemmer scored a goal to give Indiana the lead back on a shorthanded tally with 1:16 remaining. Coach Ron Hellen had rolled the dice by using four forwards to kill of the penalty. The Eagles made Indiana pay for the gamble and tied the game at 2-2 on a powerful snap shot by Justin Juha with just 11 seconds remaining in the 2nd. Early in the third period, both teams had odd man breaks but could not capitalize. Then, a little over half way through the period, Indiana's Aaron Smith made a nifty play forcing the puck off of the stick of the South Park defenseman and right onto the stick of Schlemmer, who whistled a wrist shot past Episcopo to give the Indians the lead 3-2. At the 1:16 mark, impressive freshman Casey Haines took a pinpoint pass from captain Nicko Speilman, and Casey made no mistake burying a wrist shot upstairs to seal the victory for Indiana in front of a festive crowd of over 600 at the 'House of King Samuel'. Indiana outshot South Park 33-21 on the night. imageimage

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