VERSUS 
GREENVILLE, SC –The Greenville Road Warriors fell behind late in the first period on Thursday night and could not bounce back as they fell to the Gwinnett Gladiators by a score of 3-1 at the BI-LO Center. The loss dropped Greenville’s record to 23-8-2 on the season.
The Road Warriors began the game with suffocating defense against a Gladiator team that they had limited to three goals in the last four games. Gwinnett had managed just two shots through the first half of the period. But a late power play energized Gwinnet even though it could not produce a goal. With 30 seconds remaining in the first Dan Kissel broke into the Greenville zone on a 2-on-1 with Aaron Bendickson. Bendickson took a wrist shot from the right wing that Dov Grumet-Morris sticked away, but Kissel jammed it in for his eighth goal of the season. Grumet-Morris, who was making his 15th straight start, turned away eight shots in the period while Greenville tested Gwinnett’s Chris Carrozzi with five shots.
Greenville came out looking to assert itself in the second period and a quick strike by Chris Chappell knotted the game at one. Working a cycle on the right-wing wall with Brandon Wong, Jimmy Kilpatrick spied Chappell lurking open in the slot. The quick pass allowed Chappell to whip a wrist shot past Carrozzi low to the blocker side at 3:12 of the second. The goal was Chappell’s third of the season. Gwinnett bounced back, though, and launched 15 shots Grumet-Morris’ way in a busy second frame. Paul Flache struck at 7:33 to earn the lead back for Gwinnett. The defenseman’s fourth goal of the season was scored on a rebound from Tim Miller’s shot from the right wing. At the 15:53 mark Miller, then, deflected a pass by Flache out of mid-air and past Grumet-Morris for a 3-1 Gwinnett lead. that goal closed out the second period scoring.
Greenville’s third period shot total (13) was more than double what it had registered in the first two periods combined (11) but Carrozzi was on his game for the last 20 minutes. Despite several quality chances the Gladiators’ rookie netminder turned the Road Warriors away at every chance and made his team’s two-goal lead stand up. The Road Warriors went ultra-aggressive and pulled Grumet-Morris for the extra attacker with 2:03 left to play, but could not push another goal home.
Grumet-Morris turned in 26 saves while suffering his fifth regulation loss of the season. The Road Warriors were 0-for-3 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
Leave a Reply