Springfield and St. Louis were off and running again tonight as the Bandits scored twice before the Blues could tickle the back of the net. Birmingham drew first blood with a goal at 8:09 with help from Kalisz, 1 – 0. At 12:31 Pollock scored the second Bandit goal on an assist from Dangel to make it 2 – 0. In years past the Blues would have folded and resigned themselves to another Bandit controlled game, but no so, this group. Chris Sitler scored at 17:17 on assists from Cody Dixon and Kyle Cook, and the Blues cut the lead in half. At the first intermission the Bandits led 2 – 1.
You could say period two was a disaster for the Springfield Jr. Blues, but I don’t think that would be an adequate description. Murphy’s Law was in effect for the Blues because anything that could go wrong did, and then some. The Bandits scored four times to take a 6 – 1 lead into the locker room for second intermission. The Blues passing was off, but then so was everything else. Not only did the Blue and Gold not bring their “A” game, they left the rest of the game at home as well.
There’s an old saying that “if it weren’t for bad luck they’d have no luck at all.” Also, “some days are diamonds, some days are rocks…” Tonight was a giant mountain of rock for the Blues.
The third period was ugly and sloppy, but dominated by the Bandits. Parks replaced Antoni earlier in the game, passing was off all game for the Blues. The Good Guys just did not play well. The only bright spots for the Blues were a goal by Kyle Cook on a penalty shot, and Ethan Nauman got the breakaway scoreless monkey off his back. There were few bright spots during this game. Cody Kohn’s steady defensive play was steady but the team really didn’t play well in any area.
St. Louis clinched the Midwest Division with the win so the Blues will spend the next two weekends in Janesville, next weekend to end the regular season and the following weekend in the first round of the playoffs.
Once again, the final score was 8 – 4 Bandits over the Jr. Blues.
