Scorpions win fights, game in final period

By Eric Maddy
The SCORE

One down, one to go.

Erik Johnson's goal with 15:26 left in the game gave the New Mexico Scorpions the lead for good in a 5-3 victory over division co-leader Arizona in a Central Hockey League game Friday night at the Santa Ana Star Center.

It was the first of two games New Mexico will play against division leaders this weekend. The Sundogs fell out of a tie with Odessa by losing its fourth straight game, and the Jackalopes come to town Saturday night.

Arizona's frustration boiled over in the final 30 seconds, when three fights broke out.  In the first set of battles, New Mexico fan favorite Kevin Harvey squared off with Jonathan Bernier at center ice, where the two locked up for about 20 seconds before patting each other on the heads and breaking up. Off to the side, David  Simones of the Scorpions and Kevin Cormier did battle.

After those four players were assessed five penalties totaling 22 minutes -- Bernier earned two minutes for roughing in additon to five minutes of fighting for all four -- play resumed for all of 21 seconds. At that point, the Scorpions' Shawn Skiehar dropped Matt Sunderman with a short right, then added at least two more rights before letting up, much to the delight of the 2,316 fans in attendance.

"He threw some jackhammers," head coach Randy Murphy said of Skiehar. "He's a tough character."

Murphy said his team was ready for the late-game brawls.

"You know it's going to happen," he said. "They are kind of struggling a little bit right now.  It happens when a team is having the best of times, but when a team is winless in four games ...

"The guys showed good team courage -Simoes, Skihar and Harvey sticking up for their teammates at the end there. That was good team toughness, a good effort all around."

New Mexico' assistant captain Chris Robertson started the deciding sequence with a drive on the Arizona goal, and passed the puck across the front of the net to Dominic Osman, who fed Johnson at the top of the goal crease for the game-winner.

"We had Robo and Ozzy working down low," Johnson said. "They have a tendency to go low to those guys and leave a third guy out high.

"The puck just kind of came to me. Ozzy made a really good pass, I threw it on net and it just happened to go in."

Robertson added insurance with another goal coming off a strong New Mexico push with 2:39 left in the period.

Johnson's goal decided a back-and-forth game where both tams had leads and both teams trailed at various times.

New Mexico, which won at Arizona on New Year's Eve by the same 5-3 score, rallied from an early deficit, with team captain Vladimir Hartinger getting an assist and the go-ahead goal. But Arizona came back to tie the game with the only goal of the second period.

Forward Mark Kolanos scored from the point with 8:37 left in the first period, with assists going to David Schlemko and Tyler Liebol, who was playing his first game for Arizona after being acquired in a trade from Wichita earlier in the week.

Mitch Stephens tied the game with 5:23 left in the period only seconds after the Scorpions lost a power play advantage, taking a pass from  Hartinger and slamming it past Arizona goalie Andrew Gallant.

Hartinger gave New Mexico the lead with an unassisted slap shot from the left wing with 2:54 on the clock.

Hartinger had two goals in  the third period of New Mexico's victory at Arizona on Monday.

The Scorpions outshot Arizona 14-8 in the opening period, but was 0-for-2 on the power play. New Mexico will be on a 4-on-3 advantage for 1:19 to start the second period, gaining the man advantage on a penalty by Alex Leavitt with 40.1 seconds left in the opening stanza. New Mexico's Ray Ortiz and Arizona's Karl Sellan were already in the penalty box for unsportsmanlike conduct after mixing it up in front of the benches with 1:29 left in the period.

The first half of the second period featured missed opportunities by both teams. New Mexico failed to convert on the power play it brought into the period and on one other power play opportunity, and came closest to scoring when Dominic Osman's shorthanded shot was tipped by an Arizona stick and hit the crossbar.

Arizona finally broke through to tie the game on Leavitt's shot off of a Liebol pass with
5:34 left in the period.

"Our second periods -- I don't know," Murphy said. "We seem to get off to get off to good starts and kind of lapse.  Then we figure out we have to play the same way that we did at the start of the game.

"Lucky for us it wasn't too late."

The two teams traded unassisted goals early in the third period. Konrad Reeder gave the Scorpions a 3-2 lead by skating down the left side, across the crease and firing a backhanded goal to the outside of Gallant's left leg pad with 17:47 left in the period. But Amarillo countered 1:25 later on a goal by Jason Visser, setting up Johnson's heroics.

New Mexico outshow Arizona 13-11 in the second period for a  27-18  advantage in the game, but still struggled with putting the puck in the net, especially on the power play. The Scorpions were 0-for-4 on the power play entering the final period, while Arizona was 0-for-1.

After back-to-back home losses to last-place Amarillo before the holiday break, the Scorpions seemed to play up to - and beyond - the level of their competition. Next up is Odessa, which took over the Southwest Division lead with a 3-2 overtime win at Amarillo on Frinday.

"We know we're chasing these two teams. It's a lot more incentive," Murphy said.  It's great to be able to control our own destiny.

"We lost our two previuos games at home, and I think that was kind of chewing at the guys a little bit."
 
Added Johnson: "It's huge. After we lost two games to Amarillo, this really helps us out in the standings. That's two big wins, knocking these guys off. Hopefully we can not look back now and just keep going."

Told Odessa had won Friday night, Johnson said, "We'll have to knock them off too. Or try to."

The Scorpions, who trail the Jackalopes by 10 points in the standings, are third in the division but fourth overall in the conference.

The game startes at 7:15 p.m. \radio coverage will be provided by 610-AM, The Sports Animal.

Ticket information is available at 881-PUCK or at http://www.ScorpionsHockey.com. Complete statistics and standings are online at http://www.CentralHockeyLeague.com.