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NEWSDate: Mar 19, 2010 Win Puts Cottonmouths In Playoffs
By Chris White, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer It had been at least four years since Ryan McCarthy scored a hat trick, and he broke the spell with plenty on the line. The Columbus Cottonmouths forward scored three goals and teammate Jesse Cole added two more as the Snakes clinched a spot in the SPHL playoffs with a 7-5 victory over the Knoxville Ice Bears on Thursday at the Civic Center. "We just worked hard tonight," McCarthy said. "We knew we just needed a point to make the playoffs, and that's all we wanted when we went out there tonight." The Snakes would have had five more games to notch a win and secure a spot or wait for Louisiana to lose, but it felt good to not have wasted any more time, Cottonmouths coach Jerome Bechard said. "It's just nice to have it done now," Bechard said. "It takes a little pressure off of us, but all along I think we pretty much figured we were going to make it." Columbus' Tim Green opened the scoring with a goal six minutes into the first period, taking a shot off a pass from Levi Lind and then putting in his own rebound. McCarthy made it 2-1 with his first goal of the night when he put in a pass from defenseman Tim Upton, who was making his debut with the Snakes. But Knoxville tied the game after each first-period Snakes score with goals from Tim Vitek and Taylor Hustead, and the teams finished the opening period tied 2-2. Knoxville took its only lead of the game less than two minutes into the second period on a goal from Kevin Swider, who skated between the circles in the Snakes' zone to pick up a lose puck and took a sharp-angle slap shot from along the left boards that sneaked by Columbus goalie Ian Vigier, who saved 30 of 35 shots. |
