{"id":430508,"date":"2026-10-17T14:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T14:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430508\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T14:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T14:24:10","slug":"stingrays-rally-from-early-deficit-to-beat-jacksonville-5-1-in-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430508\/","title":{"rendered":"Stingrays rally from early deficit to beat Jacksonville 5-1 in season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (WCIV) \u2014 The South Carolina Stingrays opened their 2026-27 season with a 5-1 win over the Jacksonville Icemen on Friday night at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.<\/p>\n

The victory was Jesse Kallechy\u2019s first as the Stingrays\u2019 coach. South Carolina outshot Jacksonville by a 2-to-1 margin and scored five unanswered goals after falling behind early.<\/p>\n

Colby Ambrosio put Jacksonville ahead just over a minute into the game, capitalizing on a Stingrays turnover. South Carolina had 13 of the first 14 shots but trailed 1-0 after the first period.<\/p>\n

READ MORE | “South Carolina Stingrays agree to terms with defenseman Justin Bean, returning to ECHL.”<\/a><\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Biakabutuka tied the game with a slap shot with just over five minutes left in the second. Tyler Weiss then set up Ryan Sandelin for the go-ahead goal in the final seconds of the period.<\/p>\n

The Stingrays extended their lead on a power-play goal by Josh Wilkins early in the third. Kyle Jackson assisted on the goal. Alex Gaffney later set up Cam Morrison for Morrison\u2019s first goal as a Stingray, and Tyler Kopff scored against his former team to make it 5-1.<\/p>\n

Garin Bjorklund stopped 21 of 22 shots for South Carolina. The win improved his career record against Jacksonville to 8-0. Gaffney recorded his first professional point with his assist.<\/p>\n

READ MORE | “‘I can’t wait to get started!’ South Carolina Stingrays sign Canadian forward Alex Dostie.”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (WCIV) \u2014 The South Carolina Stingrays opened their 2026-27 season with a 5-1 win over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-430508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}