Dragons Roll Breakers (1/31)

COLUMBUS, GA - After showing some flashes last night, Biloxi was eager to seek some revenge over their former captain and the Columbus River Dragons. Unfortunately, Saturday night’s affair would be one that Columbus dominated from start to finish, en route to a 5-1 win.

Columbus came out hot to begin period 1, forcing Anton Borodkin to make some difficult saves in just his first start dating back to his injury on January 2nd. As the game progressed to the 7 minute mark, Joel Texmo and AJ Schlepp shed the mitts. Schlepp came out decisively in a quick bout, and quieted the Civic Center crowd as he was sent to the box for his league-leading 174th penalty minute of the season. 94 seconds after the fight, Alexander Jmaeff darted down the lane and one-timed a Josh Colten centering-pass home to open the scoring at 1-0 Columbus. The back half of the period featured end to end action, with as long as 6 minutes without a whistle. Both teams settled into the game after a sloppy start, but no one else found the scoresheet. The horn sounded with Columbus taking a 1-0 lead to the room, outshooting Biloxi 10-8. 

The second period began with Columbus coming out strong once-more, and looking to add to their lead. They began to tip the scales in their favor for both possession and zone time, but Breakers netminder Anton Borodkin was dialed in. 14 minutes into the second, it was still 1-0, but it felt like Columbus was moments away from opening things up in a big way. At 14:19, Lucas Texmo picked up a deflected pass in the offensive zone and sniped a goal top shelf while being taken down to make it 2-0. Biloxi needed to find a way to generate some momentum late, but unfortunately, things couldn’t have gone much worse. With 75 seconds to play, a bad Breaker pass kicked out into the neutral zone where it was collected by Tyler Barrow. The leagues’ 3rd best points-getter was off to the races, finishing with a wrister on the glove side to make it 3-0. 45 seconds later, Cody Wickline pulled the puck out of traffic and stuffed it home to extend the lead to 4. Columbus dominated in shots 20-7 in the middle frame, and carried a comfortable 4-0 lead out of thin air into the room, 20 minutes away from their 6th consecutive win. 

In the third period, the River Dragons continued to floor the gas. Biloxi looked deflated, and despite finishing a lot of checks, they just simply couldn’t get much rolling offensively. At 7:20, Cody Wickline potted his 2nd of the night to make it 5-0, essentially planting the dagger. The silver lining for Biloxi came at the midway point, when DonHeaven Veilleux crashed the net to shovel home his 2nd of the season to save his team from a shutout. Columbus cruised the rest of the way to triple zeros, outshooting the Breakers 42-19 en route to a 5-1 victory.

Biloxi falls to 6-26-1, and will close out their 3 game road trip tomorrow at 3:05 CST against Athens. Columbus wins their 6th straight, imp