Rush Push Mudbugs to the Brink with Convincing 4-1 Victory
April 17, 2010 - Central Hockey League (CHL)
Rapid City Rush News Release
(Bossier City, LA) - On Saturday night, the Rapid City Rush moved themselves to within one victory of a Northern Conference Championship and a trip to the President's Cup Finals after a strong performance in a 4-1 win over the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs. The Rush received timely contributions from Brendan Cook, Brendon Hodge and Colt King who all scored their first goal of the series. Danny Battochio returned to form, making 32 saves and helping Rapid City's penalty kill go perfect for the first time in six games. The win sets up game six at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center where the chance have a chance to close out the series.
The two teams exchanged goals just 1:09 apart in the opening period. The first came at 4:34 on a play set up by Les Reaney and Scott Wray, and scoring his first goal of the series was Brendan Cook who found the open net. The Mudbugs fired right back when David Rutherford sent the puck to the goal mouth where Justin Aikins jammed it home for the 1-1 tie.
It would take nearly 40 minutes for the next goal to be scored, but the wait was well worth it for the Rush as well as Brendon Hodge. Just over four minutes into the third period, Colt King centered a puck to Hodge, and the veteran fired a snapshot to the lower left corner for the 2-1 lead. The goal snapped his season-long 10-game goalless drought and also served as his first game-winning goal since February 12th. It was then King's turn to find the net when he sent home a rebound from a Riley Weselowski shot at 13:03 for his first tally of the series. As the Mudbugs pulled Parker Van Buskirk, Rapid City's Blaine Jarvis picked up an empty-net goal to seal the 4-1 win.
Danny Battochio moved to 7-1 after making 32 saves while Parker Van Buskirk made 27 stops but fell to 2-2 in the postseason. The game featured just four combined powerplays as the Rush went 0-for-1 while stopping all three of the Mudbug chances. The perfect outing snaps a streak of six straight games in which the Rush had given up a powerplay goal including multiple powerplay markers against in each of the last five tilts.
Rapid City now leads the Northern Conference Finals best-of-7 series, 3-2 with a chance to close it out on Tuesday, April 20th at 6:35pm. Tickets for that game are still available.
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Central Hockey League Stories from April 17, 2010
- Americans drop Game Five 6-3 to Odessa, still lead series 3-2 - Allen Americans
- Rush Push Mudbugs to the Brink with Convincing 4-1 Victory - Rapid City Rush
- Chris Stewart, Matt Thomas and Don Money guest this week on Puska On Pucks - OSC Original by Denis Puska
- Mudbugs Fall in Game 5 - Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs
- Jacks Stay Alive with Game Five Win, 6-3 - Odessa Jackalopes
- Allen takes 3-1 series lead with 6-4 win over Odessa - Allen Americans
- Mudbugs Roll Over Rush to Tie Series - Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs
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