Riders rally past Lincoln, 4-3

CEDAR RAPIDS – This was their game in hand. It may have taken awhile, but the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders took advantage of it.

Erik Foley scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period, and the Riders rallied to beat the Lincoln Stars, 4-3, Wednesday night at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena.

Cedar Rapids fell behind twice in the first period by a pair of goals, but managed to find a way to get the win. It was a rather important win.

The USHL's Eastern Conference standings look like this now with four games left in the regular season. Youngstown is on top with 79 standings points, followed by Cedar Rapids (76), Muskegon (72) and Dubuque (71).

Those four clubs all have wrapped playoff berths, but the order they'll finish is anyone's guess. The top two teams will have home-ice advantage in the best-of-five first round, which begins April 14.

'A big two points,” Foley said. 'We want to get home ice in the playoffs. Every game counts.”

Foley took a pass from teammate Andrew Oglevie steaming over the Lincoln blue line, skated into a good scoring area, dragged the puck inside a Lincoln defender's stick and rifled it past Lincoln goalie Cam Hackett for the game's final goal. Oglevie and Foley assisted on Jiri Fronk's tying goal late in the third period, a beautifully executed tic-tac-toe play.

Fronk has 29 goals this season and Foley 26. The RoughRiders have had just three 30-goal scorers in their existence.

'Just a nice pass by Andrew Oglevie there,” said Foley, after speaking with a Los Angeles Kings scout in the locker room postgame. He is expected to be a high-round pick in this summer's National Hockey League draft.

'It was a nice breakout by us,” he said. 'Puck just kind of came to me, and I just kind of did a little drag and fired it on net. Closed my eyes and hoped it would go in.”

Lincoln (17-34-5, 39 points) has the lowest point total in the USHL but scored three times in the opening period to end Cedar Rapids goalie Ryan Larkin's night early. Riders Coach Mark Carlson went with Ben Blacker to begin the second period and he stopped all seven shots he faced.

The RoughRiders outshot Lincoln, 37-16.

'I just thought it was the best thing for the team,” Carlson said of the goalie switch. 'I thought we did a lot of good things in the first period. We just made some mistakes. For two seconds, you don't pay attention, and that's what happens. It wasn't an effort thing. It was just paying attention.”

Adam Gaudette scored in the first period for Cedar Rapids, with Cal Burke scoring his 20th of the season 8:04 into the second.

'I thought we started a little slow, but we didn't let that get to us,” Gaudette said. 'Coach came in here after the first period and said no negative energy. We just stuck to our game, battled back and played hard.”

'It took us awhile to get going. We came in here (after the first period and it was 3-1. We knew we had to bear down,” Foley said. 'The guys, you know, they answered the call. We battled, beared down and got the goals. It was good.”

Cedar Rapids plays Friday night at Omaha and Saturday night at Tri-City, both playoff qualiers in the Western Conference.

FIRST STAR – Erik Foley (RoughRiders): Game-winning goal 5:36 into the third period.

SECOND STAR – Andrew Oglevie (RoughRiders): Assisted on tying and winning goals.

THIRD STAR – Ross Colton (RoughRiders): Pair of assists.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com