NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - The South Carolina Stingrays picked up one point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Florida Everblades on Saturday night.
Andrew Perrott, Grant Cruikshank, and Kyler Kupka scored for the Stingrays, while Seth Eisele made 24 saves in the loss.
The Stingrays started the game aggressively, pestering the Everblades' net with eleven shots on goal compared to Florida's five in the first period. The Stingrays finished the opening period on the power play but could not cash in.
The Stingrays earned another power play opportunity ten minutes into the second period when Florida's Colin Theisen was sent off for an interference penalty. Austin Magera won the ensuing faceoff to start the power play, and Alexander Suzdalev fed the puck cross-ice to Perrott, who buried his second goal of the season.
Cruikshank doubled the Stingray lead four minutes later. He collected a cross-ice feed from Tyler Weiss and beat Florida netminder Will Cranley with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle.
The Everblades got one back less than a minute late when Colton Hargrove knocked in a rebound for his third goal of the season. Hargrove leads the Everblades with seven points on the season.
The score remained even until Kyle Betts tied the game 14:56 into the third period when he buried a centering feed from Florida's Logan Lambdin.
The two teams traded goals in the final two minutes of the game. Kupka redirected a Tyler Weiss shot to put the Rays in front with his team-leading second power-play goal of the season, but the Everblades responded 21 seconds later. With Cranley pulled for an extra attacker, Florida's Alex Kile buried his first goal of the season to make it a 3-3 hockey game.
Cranley made two stops in overtime before the Everblades ended a game on a goal off the rush by Colin Theisen. With the victory, Florida improved to 5-1-0-0, while South Carolina dropped to 3-1-1-0 on the season.
Rays Cancer Awareness Weekend will continue tomorrow with a Sunday afternoon matchup against the Atlanta Gladiators at 3:05 pm. The Stingrays will once again wear white and purple specialty jerseys.
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