Prowlers Score 4 Unanswered to Down Rockers

The Port Huron Prowlers got back in the win column with a big 4-2 win over the Motor City Rockers. The victory for Port Huron keeps Motor City from clinching a playoff spot.

“The message before the game is that we left last week in the past,” said Prowlers head coach Matt Graham. “This week was focusing on the details of our game and what’s important for us to be successful. First period, we strayed away from the details and made uncharacteristic mistakes that ended up in the back of our net and I think we responded well in the second and tightened things up in the third as well.”

The Rockers had the better of the play in the first period and they opened the scoring. TJ Delaney found Roman Gaudet who got a bouncing puck past Tucker Tynan for his first point since coming off IR at the end of February.

Jameson Milam doubled the advantage late in the frame as he clapped a slapshot over Tynan’s glove. His team took the 2-0 lead into the intermission.

Port Huron responded in the second, when Evan Foley, Vincent Dekumbis and Dalton Jay went to work on the forecheck. The puck was worked to Jay in the slot who got a backhander off that found the top shelf to cut the lead in half.

“It’s just relentless pursuit of the puck,” Foley said. “That was the key there, constantly putting pressure and reloading. It was a great shot by a great goal scorer.”

Later in the period, Dekumbis chased down a loose puck and held it in the corner to waste time on a penalty kill. It popped out to Liam Freeborn who cut to the slot and beat Ricky Gonzalez to tie the game. With the goal, Freeborn became the first Prowler to score 50 points this season.

It was tied past the midway point of the third when Conor Foley took the puck behind his own net and found his way into offensive territory where he dropped the puck off to Mitch Jones. Jones snapped the puck top corner to put Port Huron in front for the first time.

“To me, that play was so successful because of his play behind the net,” Graham said. “He had a little bit of patience with the puck and deception. He cut to the middle of the ice and created a lot of time and space for himself. He’s a really smart player.”

The Prowlers held things down the rest of the way and Evan Foley hit the empty net to seal the deal.

Foley led the way with the empty-net goal and two assists while Dekumbis had a pair of helpers. Tynan made 36 stops in his 10th win of the season.

Gonzalez made 32 saves on the other end for the Rockers.

Game two of the three-game set is at 6:50 P.M. on Saturday, March 16 at Big Boy Arena. The game can be found live on the PHP Network YouTube channel.

Photo courtesy of Delta Imaging