Bombers slip past Stingrays

For the second night in a row the South Carolina Stingrays welcomed over 5,000 fans into the North Charleston Coliseum for Military Appreciation Night and saw newcomer Jeff Corey score two goals for the Rays in a losing effort Saturday against the Dayton Bombers, 3-2.

"It was obviously a disappointing game for us tonight," said coach Jared Bednar.

"When playing at home with our crowd behind us we were expecting a better result."

In the first period the South Carolina Stingrays got out to the lead when Keith Johnson and Jeff Corey had a 2-on-1 while killing off a penalty. Johnson fed the pass to Corey who put it past a down and out Paul Drew for the Rays' third short-handed goal of the season.

Corey, playing in just his second game as a member of the Stingrays after getting traded from the Reading Royals, got his first goal as a member of the Rays to give them a 1-0 lead at 13:44 of the period. Less than one minute later, while still on the power play, the Bombers tied things up on Dan Lapointe's third goal of the season at 14:32.

It appeared that the game would be tied up going into the first intermission, but Justin Bowers jumped on a free puck and fired it past Michal Neuvirth with 32 seconds left giving the Bombers their first lead of the night, 2-1.

Corey scored his second goal of the game, his fifth of the year, when he tied up the contest 2-2 early in the second period. At 3:45 of the period he fired a rebound past Drew from Zach Tarkir and Johnson.

The game stayed tied until the 12:23 mark in the second period, when Dan Riedel fired a shot off of Neuvirth's glove that trickled over the goal line giving the Bombers a 3-2 lead.

The third period was a defensive chess match in which neither team had many chances.

The Rays finished the period with only four shots on net and the Bombers had only six shots. Bednar pulled Neuvirth in the final minute of play in favor of the extra attacker to try and tie the game up, but they were unable to get anything past Drew before time expired.

The winning goaltender was Drew who stopped 18 of the 20 shots that he faced. Neuvirth was the losing goaltender, as he stopped 27 of the 30 shots he faced. The Rays went 0-3 on the power play while killing off two of the three short handed situations they faced.

"The best thing we can do is come back out tomorrow and turn things around against Mississippi," said Bednar. "We've seen what they can do, now we just need to do something about it."

We'll be back tomorrow night when the Rays look to exact a small measure of revenge on the Mississippi Sea Wolves. It's the first Kid's Night game for the Rays. All kid's get in for just $5 and can get a kid's meal for a mere $5 as well. Game time will be at 5:00 P.M. You can hear the game live on ESPN 910 The TEAM starting with the Benitos pre-game show beginning at 4:45.

Don't miss all the fast-paced, hard-hitting action! Individual tickets can be purchased at the North Charleston Coliseum box office, by calling Ticketmaster at (843) 554-6060 and online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Full and partial season tickets are available by calling (843) 744-2248 or by visiting online at www.stingrayshockey.com. Stingrays Hockey - A Whole Lot Cooler!