River Dragons Fire Off Another 7 Goals; 7-3 Win Extends Streak To Five

Columbus, GA - The River Dragons extend their win streak to five with a 7-3 win over division-rival Danville in a fiery Friday night at the Civic Center.

Columbus struck first via the power play when Wyatt Trumbley potted in his fourth of the season after a great passing sequence from Davide Asselin and CJ Hayes. For Hayes the assist gave his a 10-game point streak. He would follow that up with a goal being in the right place at the right time after the puck pinballed around the slot and he slipped it past Gordichuk for a 2-0 lead. That tally gave Hayes a goal in nine consecutive games.

That was all there would be for the first period, and Danville would respond in the second period on the late stages of one of their power plays AJ Tesoriero sniped one past Karpinski which stopped a streak of about 4 and a half periods of shutout hockey for the Chicago native. Tesoriero's goal was the only one in the second to give a competitve 2-1 scoreline heading into the third.

Then the third period saw that competitive game turn into a landslide by way of the River Dragons. Three goals in the first 4:14 of the third period courtesy of Hayes, Parker Moskal and Ivan Bondarenko made it 5-1 before some of the crowd of 3,326 could make it back to their seats to start the third.

After 5-1, then the gloves came off. First it was Chase Fallis and Levi Armstrong trading a couple of good ones in a quick fight. Then MJ Graham and Ben Boukal had a candidate for fight of the year with a 58 second slugfest that saw both guys lose their lids and connect on multiple haymakers.

After many penalty minutes were handed out it was time to get back to some hockey and the River Dragons kept firing away. Yianni Liarakos had an incredible behind the back deflection past Gordichuk for another power play goal and then CJ Hayes finished his hat trick on a great 2-on-1 backdoor feed from Parker Moskal. Hayes collects the first hat trick in River Dragons history.

After it was 7-1, it was time to get a little rowdy again. Over the course of the last 4:10 there were two fights and multiple game misconducts handed out to each team which saw the benches get quite thin near the end of the game. Danville took the shorter benches to their advantage with two goals late. The first from Tyler Quintos on a point shot after a faceoff to make it 7-2. The Danville captain Justin Brausen blasted one between Karpinksi's glove and pad for a 7-3 contest.

Despite the late momentum Danville ran out of goals at that point and the game finished with Columbus going on a 5-game winning streak with the 7-3 win.

Cody Karpinski gets his thrid win of the year stopping 42 of 45 shots. Jesse Gordichuk took the loss stopping 31 of 38 shots he saw.

Same two teams go at it tomorrow for what's sure to be a very entertaining hockey game. 6:05 puck drop means a 5:35 pregame show on the Columbus River Dragons Broadcast Network

Three Stars of the Game

CJ Hayes
MJ Graham
Cody Karpinski