Green Bay ends RoughRiders outstanding season

GREEN BAY, Wis. - They'll have to settle for the Anderson Cup.

The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders' terrific 2010-11 season ended abruptly Sunday afternoon, as Jean-Paul LaFontaine and David Goodwin scored goals a minute apart in the first period to help give the Green Bay Gamblers a 3-1 win in Game 4 of the USHL Eastern Conference finals.

Green Bay won the series by that same count, moving on to the Clark Cup finals against Dubuque. The RoughRiders have the regular-season points title, among other things, to fall back on.

“You strive to win every night,” said Riders Coach Mark Carlson. “But for me, it's about developing players and developing people and developing a team. We were able to go out and set a franchise record for points and franchise record for wins this season. We were able to win the Anderson Cup. That's absolutely tremendous.”

The RoughRiders could never quite recover from an early deficit Sunday. Nick Saracino scored midway through the second period to bring them within a goal, but the game stayed that way until Robert Francis put it and the series away on a goal with 49 seconds left.

Cedar Rapids had just six goals in the series, as Green Bay was able to limit its potent transition game. A smaller team physically, the Riders were unable to generate much offense through its forecheck.

No question the Gamblers were the better team in the series, as the RoughRiders had the lead for all of 37:54 in the four games.

“We kept battling,” said Carlson, whose team was outshot, 33-20. “We got one back and had our chances to tie it. Credit Green Bay. They're a heck of a hockey team, with tremendous depth at all positions. Scoring in the playoffs is always more difficult. They are a good hockey club and did a good job (defensively).”

Cedar Rapids set the franchise wins record (42) and home wins (25) record this season (42) and tied the mark for points (90). Goaltender Brady Hjelle set the USHL record for wins (40) and was a first-team postseason league all-star with center Jayson Megna.

The RoughRiders excelled despite dealing with important injuries, sickness and player defections throughout the season. That carried over to the postseason, with second-year defenseman Andy Simpson missing the entire playoffs with mononucleosis.

“I've never been prouder of a group than this group,” said Carlson, who completed his 12th season in charge of the Riders. “They had a lot of hurdles to overcome.”

Here's the game boxscore:

http://ushl.stats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=1583257