Wranglers sweep Lone Star in shootout win, extend win streak to four

Nov 2, 2021

North Richland Hills, Tx- The Wranglers held on during a crazy finish Saturday night to secure a 3-to-2 win in the shootout to win their fourth consecutive game.

Following a violent and emotional end to Friday night’s game, the Wranglers would open the scoring when Yaroslav Samadov forced a Brahmas turnover and converted, beating goalie Austin Schwab at the 13:08 mark the opening period.  The Wranglers would open up a two-goal lead when Drayton Todoroff showed off his hand-eye coordination by deflecting a Jakob Peterson shot for his first goal of the season in the final six seconds of the period.

The Brahmas would get a man advantage early in the second period and cut the lead in half with a Dylan Smith goal on the power play at the 6:14 mark of the middle period. Lone Star would dictate play in the period but could not solve Max Gutjahr, who held them to just the one goal going into the final period of play.

The Brahmas would again control the pace of play in the third but could not get past the Wranglers goalie. With 17 shots on goal in the final period, Lone Star would win a net-mouth scrum and bury the game-tying goal with just 16 seconds left in regulation and send the game into overtime.

The extra frame would prove chaotic as Lone Star thought they had the winning goal when they hit the crossbar with only seconds remaining. After a stoppage of play for a discussion, the referee ruled no goal and forced a face-off at center ice with only 10 seconds remaining. Lone Star won the face-off and dumped the puck into the Wranglers’ corner. The Brahmas thought they scored the game-winning goal with just seconds remaining in overtime, but it would be waived off as a high stick deflected it in. The game would be decided in the shootout.

The Wranglers would get goals by Logan Cleary and Jase Sofo in the first two rounds of the shootout. Gutjahr would stop Alex Hollands and Nicholas Niemo to end the shootout in just two rounds and complete the sweep of Lone Star.

Gutjahr would make 38 saves to secure his seventh win of the season and help the Wranglers win their fourth straight game. Amarillo improves to 9-and-3 on the season and has the top spot in the South Division. The Wranglers will have next week off before hosting the Shreveport Mudbugs on Nov. 5th and 6th.