Rays cap regular season with 7th straight victory

Stingrays 4, Lynx 3

Augusta — Trent Campbell scored two goals in the third period to lift the Stingrays to a 4-3 win over the Augusta Lynx on Saturday night, their seventh straight win to finish out the regular season.

"We knew that it would not be an easy game," South Carolina coach Jared Bednar said. "We battled tonight and finished out the season on a high note. I am really proud of these guys."

The Stingrays finished 47-22-3 (97 points) and will face the same Lynx (32-35-5, 69 points) in the first round of the ECHL playoffs.

In the first period, the Stingrays had a number of chances, but Augusta goaltender J.P. Levasseur turned aside all 10 shots he faced. The lone goal of the period came from the Lynx's Shane Hynes, his sixth of the season.

It was a back-and-forth second period of play, with South Carolina tying the game twice. Matt Smith got the fifth goal of his career in just his seventh game at 1:31 to tie it at 1, with assists by Marty Guerin and Paul McIlveen. Augusta took the lead again on B.J. Crum's second goal of the season. The Stingrays tied it again on Guerin's 18th goal of the season at 13:17 off an assist from McIlveen. Just over a minute later, Augusta retook the lead on Adrian Veideman's 11th goal.

The Stingrays made it 3-all at 7:50 of the third period, when Campbell put a rebound past Levasseur off assists from Morin and Rory Rawlyk. Campbell's second goal, his 22nd of the season, made it 4-3 at 15:50. Rawlyk and Sasha Pokulok had assists on Campbell's fifth goal in two games.

The winning goaltender was Josh Johnson, who stopped 19 of the 22 shots he faced. Levasseur stopped 24 of 28 shots. The Stingrays went 0-for-5 on the power play while killing off all three short-handed situations they faced.

The Stingrays open their best-of-5 playoff series with the division rival Lynx at 7:05 p.m. Thursday at James Brown Arena in Augusta.