Lone Star edges Austin to even series

May 10, 2015

by John Peterson

 

There will be a Game 3 in the Robertson Cup semifinals between the Austin Bruins and Lone Star Brahmas on Sunday. Saturday night in N. Richland Hills, Texas, the Brahmas evened the best-of-three series with a 3-1 win at the NYTEX Sports Center, forcing a deciding game Sunday at 5:30pm.

Austin outshot Lone Star 9-6 in the opening frame, but neither team managed to find the back of the net. Bruins goalie Jake Kielly (Eden Prairie, MN) and Brahmas netminder Jake Kupsky (Waukesha, WI) saw a limited number of scoring chances, but Kupsky saw a few more, in part due to a few lengthy offensive zone shifts from Austin’s European Line featuring Nico Sturm (Augsburg, Germany), Alex Pettersson (Ockero, Sweden) and Jacob Kullberg (Kallered, Sweden).

Lone Star took its first lead of the series just past the halfway point of the second period, when Roman Uchyn (Chicago, IL) snuck into the low slot and slid a shot through Kielly’s five-hole to put the Brahmas in front 1-0. The Bruins nearly tied it late in the period, when Liam Feeney (Foxboro, MA) unleashed a bomb from the point that clanked of the bottom of the crossbar and straight down into the crease.

The Bruins found the equalizer 4:20 into the third period, when Luke Dietsch (St. Paul, MN) knocked in a rebound off of a point shot by Ian Scheid (Coon Rapids, MN). But the Brahmas received a penalty shot minutes later, when Sebastian Vidmar (Malmo, Sweden) was hauled down cutting to the net. Vidmar, the league’s most valuable player beat a sprawling Kielly to give the Brahmas a 2-1 lead. Uchyn added an empty-netter in the final minute to preserve the victory and force a winner-take-all Game 3.

A deciding third game will be Sunday at 5:30pm at the NYTEX Sports Center in N. Richland Hills, Texas. The winner will advance to the Robertson Cup Finals next weekend to host the Minnesota Wilderness, who swept the Janesville Jets in the other semifinal series two games to none. The game can be seen on fasthockey.com and heard on 1480AM KAUS in Austin.