The Rays fell on the first of two nights benefitting Nate’s Next Kid Up, with a teddy bear toss now coming Saturday.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 The Corpus Christi IceRays (13-12-3) dropped the series opener in overtime to the Oklahoma Warriors (14-12-2) by a final score of 3\u20132 Friday night at the Hilliard Center.<\/p>\n
IceRays goaltender Xander Miceli and Warriors netminder Billy Stuski went toe-to-toe in the opening 20 minutes, matching each other save for save. Stuski was busy early, stopping all 10 shots he faced in the first period. Miceli turned aside 14 shots to keep the game scoreless, including two highlight-reel saves on a Warriors power play. Despite quality chances at both ends, the goaltenders put on a clinic to send the game to intermission deadlocked at 0\u20130.<\/p>\n
An early penalty to Corpus Christi put the IceRays penalty kill to work for the third time to begin the second period. The IceRays held strong to remain perfect on the kill, but seconds after the penalty expired, Jakub Galnor converted a point-blank chance to give Oklahoma a 1\u20130 lead. Still trailing midway through the contest, Corpus Christi responded when Chase Nehring scored his 10th goal of the season, making him the first IceRays player to reach double digits this year. Nehring struck again later in the period, deflecting a shot in front on the power play to give the IceRays a 2\u20131 lead.<\/p>\n
The IceRays returned to the penalty kill to start the final 20 minutes, and Kyle Sorenson capitalized on the Warriors power play to tie the game at 2\u20132. Both teams traded chances the rest of the period but were unable to break the deadlock. The best opportunity came in the final minute of regulation when IceRays forward Andrej Paricka rang a backhand shot off the crossbar. Regulation ended with the score tied, forcing overtime.<\/p>\n
Johnny Maruna drew a penalty in the opening minute of overtime, giving Corpus Christi a prime 4-on-3 opportunity to end the game. The IceRays generated several quality chances, including a shot from Easton Swift that hit the post, but Oklahoma killed off the penalty to return play to 3-on-3. In the dying seconds of overtime, defenseman Denny Oh fired a shot off the post and in behind Miceli to secure a 3\u20132 overtime victory for the Warriors.<\/p>\n
The IceRays and Warriors wrap up the series tomorrow night at the Hilliard Center with our annual Teddy Bear Toss Night. Fans are encouraged to bring a new stuffed animal and when the IceRays score their first goal, let those Teddy Bears fly! All stuffed animals will benefit Nate\u2019s Next Kid Up. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. CT.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays fell on the first of two nights benefitting Nate’s Next Kid Up, with a teddy bear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-95064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}