Visualeyes Dominate The Indians

After a shaky win against the Peace Frogs on Friday, Visualeyes faced Pappas Indians in their second game in three nights. The two teams are separated by 11 points in EMHL standings, but you never would’ve guessed that after the first period.

The extremely deep bench of Pappas kept rolling fresh skaters and upped the fore-check and back-check against Team V. Matt Baudo closed the door, making several spectacular stops including one Dominik Hasek-esque save.

Michael Denz snapped a 0-0 tie halfway through the second period on a break-away goal from rookie blue-liner Adam Bellows-Morrison. Bellows-Morrison hit a streaking Denz at center ice and Denz beat Pappas goalie, Kyle Gunn-Taylor with a nifty backhand deke. “The first goal was huge. I knew in such a tight game, that the first one would really give our team a boost. I don’t know how Denzer corralled that pass in from Bellows, but he did, and then put a great move to freeze Gunner.” Said Leberer-Kasperczyk after the win.

Bellows-Morrison found the back of the net three minutes later on beautiful passing from Eric Schottke and Donald Borsuk. The Indians fought back, cutting Visualeyes’ lead in half just under a minute later. That was the closest Pappas would come to the reigning champs all night as the Tioga Terror struck. EMHL leading scorer, Eric Schottke beat Gunn-Taylor with half a minute left in the second period on a quick wrister assisted by Duff Dunnigan.

As the third period began, Visualeyes offense exploded. Within two minutes Visualeyes took a five goal lead. Kevin Rogers scored two goals within 24 seconds of each other. Rogers, known for his play making abilities stripped the Indians D-man of the puck and surprised Gunn-Taylor with a quick wrist shot over his glove. Schottke added his 28^th goal of the season to increase the lead by five. Duff Dunnigan lead the rush up ice and found Schottke for the goal. Dunnigan’s second assist of the night gave him the league lead in assists with 29.

The Indians scored twice after Team V’s offensive flurry, but Adam Bellows-Morrison put the nail in the Indians coffin with a highlight real deke on a breakaway. The goal was his second of the game, and team high, fifth point of the night.

Visualeyes’ goalie Matt Baudo came up huge, turning away 34 shots in the win. "After a poor showing in net against the Peace Frogs, where our offensive prowess won us the game, I felt obligated to come out and give a prime time performance. It felt good to give the team an opportunity to take the third period off with playoffs right around the corner." Said Baudo.

ENGLISH-GUNNING PUTS OUT A BOUNTY

With the playoffs approaching, Visualeyes may have found a shut-down pair of defensemen. Matt English-Gunning and Andy Leberer-Kasperczyk. The pair did not allow a goal while they were on the ice and finished the game +3. After the win, English-Gunning expressed his opinion on the effort. "It was a great win. They're a team we've struggled with in the past. They're young, they're deep, they've got good goaltending and they just try way too hard. Fortunately, our experience paid off.  Now we need to focus our attention to Old Man Jack and 3rd Street Tap Room on Friday."

NEWS AND NOTES:

-In gearing up for the next game on Friday, February 17th, Matt English-Gunning put out a bounty on the head of Justin Cefaly, the Captain of Third Street Tap Room in a recent interview on Channel 23, WNLO. Plenty of great seats are still available for Friday's game and Team V is looking forward to playing in front of their loyal fans.

-The win over the Indians increases Team V's first place lead by 7 points and extends their streak of earning at least one point in a game to 13 games.