THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503260377
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
The Hampton Roads Admirals won the game they had to win, and they won it their way.
The Admirals snarled, grimaced, checked and slugged their way to a 5-3 victory over the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks Saturday that evened the best-of-five playoff series at 1-1.
The teams meet again Tuesday and Wednesday in Tallahassee. A fifth game, if necessary, will be Friday at Scope.
The Admirals acknowledged the series would have been all but over if they'd lost.
``We won the game we had to win tonight,'' Admirals coach John Brophy said. ``How could we go down there 0-2? We could come back, but it wouldn't have been likely.''
Brophy said the Admirals played with more fire than they did Friday in a 4-3 loss.
``We knocked some people down tonight,'' he said. ``You go out there and let them roam around they're a pretty good team. You knock them on their arses and they're not as good.
``Maybe now our guys understand that you've got to be mean and dirty and rotten in the playoffs.''
They certainly understood that in the third period, when the Tiger Sharks managed just six shots, and only two that threatened to get past goaltender Corwin Saurdiff.
Tallahassee had managed consistently to beat the Admirals down the ice on Friday. In the third period Saturday, the Tiger Sharks usually wound up pinned against the boards or flat on their backs when they skated into the Hampton Roads zone.
Mike Nemirovsky, who was cut by the Tiger Sharks in November, scored goals to put the Admirals ahead 1-0 and 3-1. But in the third period it was all John Porco.
With the score 3-3, Porco scored the game-winner at 5:37 in lightning fashion. Rick Kowalsky won a faceoff in the left circle and knocked the puck to defenseman Rob MacInnis near the blue line. He then lobbed a shot that sailed over the heads of two Tiger Sharks and was blocked in front of the net by goaltender Mark Richards.
Porco then slapped it in underneath Richards' stick.
``It was a smart shot by MacInnis,'' Porco said. ``We've been taking slap shots from out there and having them blocked. When that happens, sometimes the other team gets a breakaway. It doesn't matter how hard the shot is, as long as you get it on goal.''
Porco put another shot on goal at 19:12 when he knocked in an empty-netter. The goal came after Saurdiff blocked a shot and passed to Nemirovsky, who then passed to a streaking Porco.
Saurdiff was credited with an assist, his second of the game.
The Admirals acknowledged they were discouraged following Friday's loss. They had surrendered the deciding goal with 10 seconds left.
``It was a heartbreaking loss,'' defenseman Brian Goudie said. ``You'd almost rather get beat 10-1 than lose like that.
``But we pulled together and got the win we needed. We were down after last night's game. We're happy tonight.''
Not quite all of them. Brophy was fuming at referee Steve LeMay, who assessed 12 penalties to the Admirals and seven to Tallahassee. In Friday's game, there were 11 total.
``We've got another team like Raleigh that never does another thing wrong on the ice. They look at our record penalties and turn around and call more,'' he said. ``And half of our penalties are scumbag penalties that never should have been called.
``He's threatening our players all over the place. Who the hell is he?'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
The Admirals' Brian Goudie, left, decks Tallahassee's Ron Pasco in
the first period of Saturday's playoff game at Scope.
by CNB