South Carolina Stingrays face Kalamazoo K-Wings in 'must-win' Game 4

The South Carolina Stingrays are going try and make history over the next six days.

Only one team in ECHL Kelly Cup playoff history — the 2010 Cincinnati Cyclones — has ever rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series.

The Stingrays hope to be the second team, but that’s not their major concern going into Game 4 of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference playoff series with the Kalamazoo K-Wings. Game 4 is 7 p.m. today at the North Charleston Coliseum.

The Stingrays are just looking to keep their season alive.

“You can throw out any cliche you want, but the fact is that we need to win Game 4, and nothing else really matters,” said Stingrays coach Spencer Carbery. “We’re not worried about the rest of the series, our focus in on Game 4. If we can get past that game, we’ll start focusing on Game 5 Saturday night.”

But looking ahead to Game 5 on Saturday or returning to Kalamazoo for the final two games of the series is counterproductive, Carbery said.

“Game 4 is the most important game of the season because it’s the next game,” Carbery said.

South Carolina defenseman Phil Oreskovic has no doubt the Stingrays can win the next four games against the K-Wings. It won’t be easy, but it can be done.

“I got total confidence in the guys in this room,” Oreskovic said. “We’re not in a great spot right now, but I’m confident we can still do it. We’ve got the guys to do it, but we can’t look past that first shift (tonight).”

South Carolina veteran forward Greg Stewart said the Stingrays need to regain the desperation the team had at end of the season when they needed two wins against Greenville just to clinch a playoff spot.

“We’ve been in this situation before at the end of the season and we need to get that mentality back,” Stewart said. “We need to keep it simple and just outwork the other team.”

No matter what, Stewart knows the Stingrays can’t win the series tonight.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us and we can’t get it all done (tonight),” Stewart said. “We’ve got to chip away at it. We can’t get caught up with trying to win four games in a row (tonight). We just need to win the next game and that starts with the first shift.”