Amarillo, TX – The Amarillo Wranglers defeated the Colorado Grit by the final score of 6-4 on Sunday night at the Budweiser Bull Pen to complete the weekend sweep. Amarillo is now 5-0-0-1 against Colorado all-time.
After winning big the previous two nights, the Wranglers had their sights set on sweeping the Colorado Grit on home ice. Andrew Peterson got the start between the pipes for Amarillo. Peterson previously stopped 18/19 last weekend in Colorado for his first NAHL win, and was looking to add another to his resume on Sunday night. Jack Erickson started in goal for the Grit. Erickson started in goal on Friday night before being chased from the net in what ended up being a 6-1 Wranglers victory.
It didn’t take long for the Wranglers to get on the board, as Morely Phillips sniped a shot past Erickson from Nolan Gagnon and Grayson Gerhard for the first goal of the game 2:20 into the contest. It looked like the Wranglers were going to take a 1-0 lead into the first intermission, but a late goal with 22 seconds left from Colorado’s Landon West tied the game up 1-1.
The Grit took a 2-1 lead 2:34 into the second period with a goal from Duncan Shin, assisted by Brayden Fryfogle. Then with 9:21 remaining in the second period, Colorado went up 3-1 with a goal from Chris Graves. Marek Thompson and George Poirier picked up the assists. A power-play goal from Nolan Gagnon helped cut into the Grit’s lead to make it 3-2 with 4:54 remaining in the period. Jack Ivey and Jack McDonald earned the assists. But another late-period goal from Colorado would help restore the Grit’s two-goal lead as Noah Grolnic scored with 26 seconds remaining to make it 4-2 heading into the third period.
In the third period, the Wranglers took control of the game with four unanswered goals. Jack Ivey scored from Ben Ivey and Nolan Gagnon 4:02 into the period to make it 4-3, and then just 28 seconds later Topi Puikkonen scored for Amarillo to tie the game up 4-4. With 11:42 remaining in the third period, Jack McDonald fired a sharp angle shot from below the far circle that hit the side of Erickson’s helmet and went in for the go-ahead score of 5-4. Ben Ivey picked up the lone assist. Andrew Peterson made some big saves to fight off Colorado and with .8 seconds on the clock, Jack Ivey buried an empty net goal to seal the game and complete the comeback at 6-4.
With the sweep of the Grit, the Wranglers improved to 22-10-5-2 on the year and now have sole possession of the second-place spot in the South Division heading into the bye week. The Wranglers will be back in action when they take on the Corpus Christi IceRays at American Bank Center on January 26th and 27th. You can watch on NATV or listen in on YouTube.