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Rangers rally for OT win

January 24, 2008 - North American Hockey League (NAHL)
Marquette Rangers News Release


Marquette - You'll forgive Marquette Rangers head coach Randy Enders for feeling a bit exhausted after Thursday nights' North American Hockey League game with Traverse City.

The second year coach had just finished a wild ride of emotions watching his team come from a four goal third period deficit to defeat the North Stars by a final of 7-6 in overtime.

Austin Mattson put the finishing touches on the comeback with a rebound goal past North Stars goaltender Chris Paliafito at 2:08 of overtime. Mattson, crashing the net after a Garrett Ladd wrist shot, caught the puck of the netminders left pad and buried his chance.

"When we got down we challenged our veterans and our older players" Enders said. "If a team is going to succeed its' leaders need to rise to the challenge, and to their credit our veterans responded and led us back for the win."

"We weren't playing poorly, it's just that they (Traverse City) took advantage of some good opportunities to get out to a big lead, but our guys hung tight and stuck together. Once the ball got rolling it was pretty obvious god things were going to happen for us down the stretch."

Traverse City opened the scoring with the only goal of the first period when Harrison Niemann scored the first of two on the night to give the North Stars the lead at 7:08 of the period.

Niemann scored again to open the Second period to make it 2-0 at 5:36, but the Rangers would answer 12 seconds later when Ladd scored from Collin Saint-Onge and Austin Mattson.

Traverse City would outscore the Rangers 3-1 over the remainder of the second period, plus the North Stars scored the first goal of the third period to give them a seemingly safe 6-2 advantage with just over 16 minutes remaining in regulation.

Then the Rangers started to respond to their challenge from the coaching staff.

Marquette's comeback began when Josh Bussell and Aaron Pietila teamed up on the power play at 4:27.

Then it was Marquette native James Gallagher from a sharp angle at 7:38 from Bussell and Derek Grogan. The second straight goal with the man advantage made it 6-4.

The Rangers closed to within one when Luke Hannon scored from Nick Condon with 8:03 remaining on the clock.

The game stayed 6-5 until Michael Macari tapped home a centering pass from Pietila at 19:10 of the third period forcing overtime, and eventually Mattson's heroics.

Paliafito finished the night with 36 saves, Beau Christian and Matt Brooker combined to stop 21 Traverse City shots on the evening.

Marquette returns to action Friday night at Lakeview Arena facing Alpena at 7:30.

For more on the Rangers, visit the teams website www.marquetterangers.com.



North American Hockey League Stories from January 24, 2008


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