STINGRAYS FALL TO LIONS 4-1

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The South Carolina Stingrays dropped a 4-1 decision against the Trois-Rivieres Lions on Saturday night. Garin Bjorklund stopped 22 of 25 shots in the loss.

BOX SCORE

Jakov Novak opened the scoring for the Lions on the power play. Novak collected a cross-ice feed from Alex Olivier-Voyer and buried his team-leading seventh power-play goal of the season.

Ten minutes later, Novak doubled the Trois-Rivieres lead. He stole the puck from Ivan Lodnia right in front of the Stingrays' net and ripped a wrist shot into the top left corner to make it 2-0 Lions heading into the first intermission. The Stingrays held a 14-12 edge in shots after the opening 20 minutes.

Alex-Olivier Voyer scored the lone goal in the second period. Nicolas Guay rushed the puck into the Stingrays' zone and fired a shot that Bjorklund kicked out. Voyer pounced on the rebound to make it 3-0 Lions. The goal was Voyer's 17th goal of the season.

The Stingrays got on the board 3:43 into the final period thanks to a power play goal by Kevin O'Neil. O'Neil rushed the puck into the zone, executed a give-and-go with Austin Magera, and slipped a backhand past Trois-Rivieres goaltender Strauss Mann to make it 3-1.

That was as close as South Carolina would get. Nicolas Lariviere iced the game with an empty-net goal with 2:33 remaining. The Stingrays return to action tomorrow afternoon for a 3:05 p.m. tilt against the Trois Rivieres Lions. Stingrays legend Andrew Cherniwchan will have his jersey retired, and the ceremony will begin at 2:30 p.m.