THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300627
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY REID SPENCER, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: 49 lines
Charlotte scored three goals in the final eight minutes of the second period Tuesday night and survived a third-period Hampton Roads rally en route to a 3-2 East Coast Hockey League victory at Independence Arena.
With the Checkers (4-0-1) in command, the Admirals' Ryan Mulhern took Rick Kowalsky's pass from behind the net and beat Charlotte goaltender Paxton Schafer at 3:34 of the final period.
At 6:58, Randy Pearce redirected Alex Alexeev's slap shot from the point past Schafer for a power-play goal that narrowed Charlotte's advantage to 3-2.
After a timeout at 18:27, Admirals coach John Brophy sent goalie Darryl Paquette to the bench, but Schafer survived a last-second flurry - with help from the goal post - to claim his third win.
``We've been on the road for the last two weeks,'' Brophy said. ``We played well, but we didn't play good enough. They (Charlotte) played a little bit better.''
An inopportune bounce at the end of a Hampton Roads power play triggered Charlotte's second-period barrage.
Charlotte's Phil Berger had gone to the penalty box for slashing at 10:09. With time running out on the two-minute minor, the puck hopped over Andy Weidenbach's stick at the Charlotte blue line and slid along the boards into the Admirals' zone - just as Berger was released from the box.
Berger won the race to the puck, skated in on Paquette and scored between the pads from point-blank range at 12:20.
``It bounced over his stick, and the guy comes out of the penalty box and gets the goal,'' Brophy said. ``That's the way she goes. It's not that we didn't play hard - we played pretty good.''
Forty-eight seconds later, former Admiral Eric Fenton buried a slap shot from 30 feet in front of the net, and J.F. Aube made it 3-0 with a power-play goal at 18:59, redirecting Mick Kempffer's shot from the right wing.
Hampton Roads (2-3-1) outshot the Checkers 14-13 in a scoreless first period that featured two slugging matches between Aaron Downey and Charlotte forward Eric Boulton.
During a break in the action at 6:22, Boulton and Downey dropped gloves and skated from the Checkers' zone to center ice before they began flailing at each other. Both players drew five-minute majors.
In their next appearance on the ice together, before a center-ice faceoff at 13:37, Boulton and Downey squared off for round two, and each served another five minutes.
The Admirals had their share of opportunities in the first 20 minutes - several the result of Charlotte's carelessness in its own end - but Schafer proved impenetrable until the final period. by CNB