Ironmen take rubber match

Three-goal second propels Jamestown

BOX SCORE  |  THURSDAY GAME NOTES

JAMESTOWN, N.Y. – Jamestown Savings Bank Arena has not been good to the Traverse City North Stars.  With a 4-3 setback on Sunday afternoon in Western New York, the Stars lost for a fourth time in six contests in the building.

“Every time we’ve been there, we’ve been outworked – not necessarily for long stretches, but for important stretches,” Traverse City head coach Chad Fournier lamented. “We have to work harder for longer stretches. Sometimes we have a tendency to stray from our game and play too much individually.”

Chris Leibinger (Saginaw, MI/TC North Stars/Michigan Tech)put the North Stars on the board first, scoring his fourth goal of the year and extending his point streak to five games with a scant 17 seconds ahead of the first intermission.  The first 11:42 of the second frame belonged to the host Ironmen, however, with a pair of rejoinders in the first 1:40 of the period, and a third just past the halfway point.

Traverse City rallied to tie the game with a Mitchell Snider (Traverse City, MI/TC North Stars NAHL/Manhattanville College)tally at 14:18 and another from Nathan Harris (Fowlerville, MI/Lansing Capitals U18) with just three ticks left in the second. Jamestown closed up its goal for the final period, exacting the winner at 7:38 and holding off the North Stars down the stretch.

On the bright side, the Traverse City power play continued to hum, converting on two of three chances to make it a 5-for-12 weekend with the advantage.

“We’re getting lots of traffic on the power play,” Fournier explained. “Keeping it simple, making good passes – just moving the puck well and it’s starting to click.”

Harris assisted on a pair of goals to post his first three-point game as a junior, and has nine points in as many games dating back to Feb. 24.  Zack Dorer (Holt, MI/Des Moines USHL/Ferris State), Jared Van Wormer (Traverse City, MI/TC North Stars NAHL), Eric Rivard (Traverse City, MI/TC North Stars NAHL), and Sean Murphy (Cary, NC/Tri-City USHL)collected an assist apiece.

Zach Nagelvoort (Holland, MI/Kalamazoo NAHL)stopped 20 shots in net for Traverse City, which fell to 28-18-6 and eight points behind second-place Kalamazoo in the chase for the second rung on the North Division playoff ladder.

The same two teams will meet again next weekend in a three-game series, with the locale shift to Centre ICE Arena for the Thursday-Friday-Saturday set. Thursday’s game will face-off at 6:35 p.m., with Friday and Saturday contests getting underway at 7 p.m