Scorpions fall to Amarillo on Friday night
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The Amarillo Gorillas may have found a home away from home - the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho.
The last place Gorillas won their second straight game at New Mexico, beating the third-place Scorpions 4-1 in a Central Hockey game Friday night.
New Mexico came into the game with a 8-3-2 home record, including a four-game winning streak. The Scorpions' last home loss was a 5-4 overtime decision to Amarillo on Dec. 13, the last time the Gorillas visited New Mexico.
Unfortunately for New Mexico, the Gorillas picked up where they left off two weeks ago.
Amarillo took a 1-0 lead 5:03 in the game when center David Nimmo scored the first of his two goals in the period. The Gorillas extended their lead to 2-0 on Bill Vandermeer's goal at the 7:53 mark. New Mexico finally got on the board when Andrew Smale broke free, collected a pass from Michael Kolarz and scored 13:49 into the game, but Amarillo came back to score a power play goal by Mimmo 2:49 left in the period. Both teams had nine shots on goal in the first period. The rematch is the seventh of 13 games the Scorpions will play against their division rivals this season. The first 1,500 fans will receive a cow bell from Chick-Fil-A. After a road game at Arizona on New Year's Eve, the Scorpions return home for games against Arizona (Jan. 4) and Odessa on Jan. 5. For ticket information, go to http://www.ScorpionsHockey.com. Complete statistics and standings are available at http://www.CentralHockeyLeague.com.
New Mexico pounded Amarillo goalie Dan McWhinney in the second period, especially early in the period when the Gorillas had three penalties in less than four minutes. The Scorpions had a 5-on-3 advantage for a 1:28 stretch in the period but could not score.
Vandermeer added Amarillo's fourth goal just 2:32 into the final period. New Mexico failed to capitalize on its only power play opportunity in the period and was 0-for-5 with a man advantage.
New Mexico coach Randy Murphy was baffled by what he called an "inexcusable" performance.
"I tried mixing up the lines up. I tried moving a couple of defensemen up to create some forechecking. We had a non-existent forecheck tonight," Murphy said. "Michael \koarz was one of our most intense players tonight. I thought moving him up would create some urgency in our forwards. They had no urgency tonight at all.
"You try to tweak things, make things a little different and hope they respond. You sit a guy down to light a burr under his butt or take him off the power play. But none of it seemed to work."
Murphy was especially disappointed because his team had to make up ground on the two teams it is chasing in the Southwest Division. New Mexico trails first-place Arizona by 11 points and second-place Odessa by eight points, and both frontrunners lost as well Friday night.
"That's a team that for a lot
of diferent reasons we should have no trouble getting up for. It's a divisional game. We had two teams that we're chasing that lost and we knew they had lost in the third period. To come out with that lackluster effort ... Instead of being 12 points ahead of those guys, they're eight points behind us now. That's a four-point game.
"That's inexcusible. These guys are professionals, and they obviously didn't act like it tongiht. I don't know what they did as individuals to prepare for tonight, but its got to be better in 24 hours. It's disappointing, to say the least.
The same two teams play again Saturday night at 7:15 p.m. at the Santa Ana Star Center.