Hayhurst with OT winner as RoughRiders top Youngstown

CEDAR RAPIDS - On the ninth and 10th tries, the power play worked for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. Couldn't have been at a better time.

Jacob Hayhurst finished off one beautiful play by defenseman Jack Ahcan with 5:03 left in overtime as the Riders beat Youngstown, 3-2, Saturday night. This was shades of the old days at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena, as 3,771 fans raised the roof at the rink throughout much of the third period and especially after Hayhurst's winner.

'That was something special,” he said. 'You look at what Jack Ahcan did there, and the other two guys on the ice. They kept the puck alive, we got a quick up and Jack made a great play to find me back door for a tap in. A lot of guys would have put that in. I was just fortunate to be in the right spot there.”

Youngstown, probably the largest and most physical team in the USHL, took penalty after penalty the final two periods of this instant classic. But power play after power play came up empty, and the Phantoms got the first goal of the game shorthanded late in the second period.

The 10th and final man advantage was seconds from being fruitless, too, when Ahcan took a quick pass at the Youngstown blue line, skated in, then towards and through the slot area.

He waited, waited and waited some more before throwing a pass across the ice to Hayhurst, situated at the right side of the net. He finished off the play, and the place went nuts.

'At that point, you take them any way you can get them,” said Riders Coach Mark Carlson. 'It was a big-time battle. They're a real good team. We knew that. I'm just proud of how we hung in there. I mean, we were down to (four) defensemen there ... Those guys just played with tremendous guts.”

Cedar Rapids (25-10-3, league-leading 53 standings points) lost Friday night to Youngstown, 2-1, and appeared destined for another frustrating, low-scoring loss here. But Justin Cole had an innocuous-looking wrist shot from distance that somehow sneaked through Phantoms goalie Ryan Bednard for a bolt of lightning that tied things with 8:04 left in regulation.

Cal Burke's deft tip of a Ross Colton shot less than a minute later gave the Riders their first power-play goal and first lead of the night, 2-1. Youngstown tied it with exactly four minutes to go on a Kevin Conley rebound goal.

Conley went from hero to goat, though, taking an undisciplined slashing minor at the end of regulation. That gave Cedar Rapids a 4-on-3 power play the first two minutes of overtime.

This game 'featured” 122 minutes in penalties and 14 combined power plays. That included a hullabaloo at the end of the second period in front of the Cedar Rapids net that resulted in six players being assessed 82 penalty minutes, including RoughRiders defenseman Riese Zmolek getting a game misconduct for abuse of officials.

'I think that's probably the closest thing to a war on the ice that there is,” Hayhurst said. 'You saw it there at the end of the second period there with that scramble in front of our net. We were actually short-handed there, with four guys on the ice to their five. Everyone just did what they had to do. At the end of the day, we just wanted it more than they did. We worked hard and came away with the win.”

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