PrairieThunder Win
March 24, 2010 - International Hockey League 2 (IHL 2)
Bloomington PrairieThunder News Release
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - Craig Macdonald scored his second hat trick of the season to power the Bloomington PrairieThunder to a 5-2 victory before 3,071 people Wednesday night in International Hockey League action at U.S. Cellular Coliseum.
The victory moved the PrairieThunder's record to 29-27-3-5 (66 points) ahead of a home weekend series with Port Huron on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. and Sunday at 4:05 p.m.
It also moved Bloomington seven points ahead of Flint and Quad City, both idle Wednesday, in the race for the fourth and final postseason playoff berth.
Dayton took a 1-0 lead 2:36 into the game on Mike Vaskivuo's unassisted goal before the PrairieThunder got rolling. Macdonald scored his first goal with 14:06 remaining in the initial period off assists by Jon Booras and Jason Lepine.
Brett Holmberg then scored his seventh goal in as many games with 2:54 left in the period on assists by Jamie Carroll and Bill Bagron.
Bloomington erupted for three goals in the second period to a take a 5-1 lead. John Snowden tallied the first score with 12:18 to go on assists by Nick Elligsen and and Macdonald.
Five minutes later, Macdonald rattled off two straight power play goals within a six-minute span. Snowden and Booras had assists on the first goal, while Snowden and Carroll contributed to the second goal.
Dayton rookie Matt Smyth completed the scoring with a power play goal on assists by Nathan Oke and Joe Van Culin at the 13:39 mark.
Andrew Martin, making his first start in net after missing 19 games with a hip injury, stopped 27 of 29 shots. Bloomington had 44 shots on goal and was successful on 2 of 6 power plays. Dayton converted 1 of 4.
International Hockey League 2 Stories from March 24, 2010
- PrairieThunder Win - Bloomington PrairieThunder
- Gems Fall To Thunder 5-2 - Dayton Gems
- Generals Continue To Battle For Playoff Berth - Flint Generals
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