(GREENSBORO, N.C.) – Brendan Gorman kept the power play hot, Nico Somerville blasted home his first goal on the team, and the Greenville Swamp Rabbits hammered 48 shots on net, but the Greensboro Gargoyles earned the second point on Thomas Freel’s overtime winner to claim a 3-2 win on Sunday afternoon.
Gorman kept his, and the power play’s, hand hot to start a back-and-forth first period. At 8:49 of the first and on the first power play of the game, Gorman potted a rebound off of a Ryan O’Hara chance in close range, beating Ruslan Khazheyev in net for the Gargoyles to give the Swamp Rabbits a 1-0 lead (O’Hara and Supryka assisted). However, the Gargoyles countered on their first power play moments later when Braden Doyle wired a shot from inside the blue line and under the bar past Swamp Rabbits net-minder Owen Flores, squaring the game at 1-1 with 8:13 to play (Parker Lindauer and Ben Raymond assisted). Nico Somerville had the last word for the Swamp Rabbits, blasting his first with the team on a brilliant Jack Brackett pass to put Greenville up 2-1 with 4:20 to go (Brackett and Jake Percival assisted).
Tyler Cristall eventually leveled the game shy of the midway point in the second frame with his first as a pro. With 6:49 gone by, Tyler Paquette’s second effort from the far corner forced a turnover that found Cristall, who outlasted Flores in the middle to square it at 2-2…