THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300605
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 73 lines
The Hampton Roads Admirals' league-leading six-game winning streak was lost in a Blizzard from West Virginia on Wednesday night.
The Huntington Blizzard, a team nearly as hot as the Admirals with seven wins in its last eight games, turned a more consistent effort into a 4-3 victory before 5,670 stunned patrons at Scope.
The Admirals, coming off an exhilarating pair of weekend victories over archrival Richmond, rarely played with the same verve they did against the Renegades - and it cost them first place in the ECHL's East Division. South Carolina, which trailed the Admirals by one point entering Wednesday's action, defeated Baton Rouge and leapfrogged Hampton Roads in the standings.
``I guess it (a letdown) happened,'' Admirals goalie Darryl Paquette said. ``We didn't know it at the time, and I still think we should have been prepared for them.''
Huntington established the tone early. Less than a minute into the game, Tracy Egeland beat Paquette to give the Blizzard a 1-0 lead.
After the Admirals evened the score on a shorthanded goal by defenseman Neil Martin, Huntington scored two consecutive second-period goals to gain a lead it would not relinquish.
``Credit them,'' coach John Brophy said. ``They came in here and they worked their tails off. Huntington deserved to win the game, simple as that.''
Huntington took advantage of a penalty against Aaron Downey to score the goal that gave it a 2-1 lead slightly more than midway through the second period. And the Blizzard was ahead 3-1 two minutes later when left winger Andrei Bashkirov caught the Admirals' defense napping and scored an unassisted goal.
``We didn't have every guy going 60 minutes tonight,'' defenseman Chris Phelps said. ``There isn't anyone in here who can say they went hard every minute they were on the ice - and we're the type of team that needs that if we're going to be successful.''
But the Admirals began to claw back. Phelps muscled in a shot by Savage to trim the deficit to 3-2 at 17:03 of the second period. Hampton Roads then dominated the early minutes of the third period, peppering Huntington goalie Rob Laurie with shots.
But it was Huntington's Van Burgess who scored, using a better angle to outrace Martin to a loose puck in the Admirals' end. His shot from right of Paquette glanced off the goalie, shot into the air, landed behind Paquette and rolled into the net to restore Huntington's two-goal advantage at 5:10 of the third.
That lasted 1:16. Dominic Maltais reduced the Admirals' deficit to one with a goal off assists by Andy Weidenbach and Victor Gervais. But that was as close as Hampton Roads came to catching the Blizzard, despite a fistful of scoring opportunities that Laurie foiled.
First, he turned aside Gervais' wraparound attempt midway through the period. He also turned away two blistering slap shots by defenseman Chad Ackerman and another by Rick Kowalsky.
And Laurie, now 11-2-1 in his last 14 games and with a goals-against average right at 3.00, was never better than after Brophy pulled Paquette for an extra skater. In the final 20 seconds, he stopped two point-blank shots by Alex Alexeev, the last two of his 41 saves.
``We had 44 shots tonight, but that's only one part of the rink,'' Paquette said. ``At times, we didn't take care of business in our own end. They played good defense, they got some good bounces and their goalie was outstanding.''
The Admirals won't have much time to dwell on the loss. Friday night, they will host the Knoxville Cherokees, the last-place team in the East Division.
``It's good that things are happening fast,'' Phelps said. ``You don't want to sit on a loss like this for too long. We'll come back hard Friday, ready to rebound from this. I feel certain of that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Bill Tiernan/The Virginian-Pilot
The Admirals' Alain Savage comes up with the puck after teammate
Chris Phelps...]
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