Dayton Falls to Rapid City 5-2

Published on December 9, 2010 under Central Hockey League (CHL)
Dayton Gems News Release


Dayton, OH- Looking to avenge a 7-5 loss earlier this season to the Rapid City Rush, the Dayton Gems tried to make it two in-a-row at home tonight at Hara Arena. The Gems had their chances early to start the game after the Rush committed three penalties, including a double-minor that gave Dayton six minutes of power play time within the first seven minutes of the opening period. The Rush penalty kill got the job done however and kept the Gems off of the scoreboard. Then building off the momentum of those penalty kills, the Rush broke a scoreless tie with the first goal of the game at the 12:17 mark. Rapid City pushed the lead up to 3-0 by the end of the first, which included scoring the third goal on the power play with only four seconds left on the clock.

The second period was a microcosm of the first period unfortunately for the Gems and to add salt to an already open wound, the Rush added their second power play goal of the night to bump the lead to 4-0. Jeff Jakaitis did his part to try to keep the Gems in the game stopping 11 of 12 shots against in the second, but opposing netminder Danny Battochio was sharp and stopped all 15 shots against after 40 minutes, allowing Rapid City to take a comfortable four-goal advantage to the third period.

Once again the Rapid City defense was rock solid to start the third period, but with just under five minutes left the Gems got off the schnide and broke the shutout bid of Battochio when rookie Erik Boisvert scored on the power play to make it 5-1. Mike Vaskivuo would add a second goal for the Gems with only 36 seconds remaining in the game, but the Vaskivuo goal wasn't the talk of the end of the game, all of the altercations that followed were what had the crowd buzzing quite loudly. A total of seven penalties were handed out at the 19:24 mark, including two 10-minute misconduct calls against the Rush. Both benches were fired up and players started calling each other out for more of the rough stuff, but the officiating crew did a good job to keep things under control and not let either team risk potential disciplinary action from the league as the Gems took the loss 5-2.

The Gems will now play their next five games on the road (they are currently 3-3 in six road games this season). The first of which starts tomorrow night in Bloomington, as they take on the PrairieThunder at 8:05 p.m. Tomorrow night's game is also the first of 12 watch parties that Boston's Bistro and Pub (located at 7500 N. Main Street in Dayton) will host this season. Members of the Gems staff will be on hand to do a number of raffles throughout the night giving fans a chance to win some free Gems merchandise. Dayton is 5-1-1 this season following a regulation loss and they have only dropped two-straight two separate times in 19 games played (11-7-1 overall). The Gems are undefeated against Bloomington this season posting a 2-0 record against the PrairieThunder and they are averaging four goals per game in those two wins.

Individual game tickets are available for purchase in advance. For more information call the Gems offices at 937-275-7777 or log onto our website at www.daytongems.com . You can also catch us on facebook at facebook.com/daytongems. The Gems will take to the road for their next five games before returning to Hara Arena the day after Christmas on Sunday, December 26th to take on the Fort Wayne Komets at 5:00 p.m. It will be the second Sunday game of the season which means a post game skate with the players after the game that night. The Kettering Medical Center is proud to be the official title sponsor of the Gems for the 2010-11 season.

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



Central Hockey League Stories from December 9, 2010


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central