RoughRiders not so special in Game 4 loss

To quote the immortal words of the old Saturday Night Live character Church Lady, "Isn't that special?"

Only if you're an Indiana Ice fan.

The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders continued their stuggles on the power play and penalty kill, decidedly losing the special-teams battle and dropping Game 4 of this United States Hockey League first-round playoff series to the Ice, 5-1, Friday night at Pepsi Coliseum in Indianapolis.

It doesn't get more simple than this. The teams are tied in the best-of-5 series, 2-2, with the deciding game tonight at 7:05 at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena. For your information, the RoughRiders bused home following Friday night's game and were scheduled to get into town about 3:15 a.m.. Indiana wasn't planning to head to Cedar Rapids until early Saturday morning.

Which was is the better way? We'll find out.

"Game 4 is history now," said RoughRiders Coach Mark Carlson, in postgame radio comments. "The first four games are over, and it comes down to one game. You've got to put the prior four wins and losses behind us."

Putting this one behind them shouldn't be too tough for the RoughRiders. Indiana took an early lead for the fourth-straight time in this series with two goals in the first period: one at the 7:59 mark from Shane Berschbach and the other at 15:51 from Mike Cichy.

That was the exact scenario the Riders faced in a come-from-behind Game 3 overtime win. When Kyle Flanagan scored short-handed 12 minutes into the second period to make it a 2-1 game, you kind of had that comeback feeling again. But Ben Albertson scored from the slot  just nine seconds later to give Indiana its two-goal cushion back, and that was pretty much it.

"I thought we came out in the first, and they were opportunistic on a couple of chances there," Carlson said. "We had some good ones, and we didn't convert. It was kind of the same thing in the second. We had some good chances and didn't convert, couldn't find a way to bang 'em in."

The RoughRiders outshot Indiana by a 35-23 margin, but Ice goaltender Brett Bennett was the difference. Well, difference 1A, actually. Special teams were huge, too, with Indiana scoring three power-play goals, including third-period tallies from Zach Golembiewski and Stanislav Galiev.

The Ice went 3-for-5 on the man-up are 7-for-18 in the series. The RoughRiders went 0-for-7 , including another lengthy but fruitless 5-on-3, and are a less-than-stellar 2-for-29 in the series. Indiana has a 17-10 goals edge in the series, but each team has scored seven times at even strength.

But that really doesn't mean much at this point. It's all about Game 5.

The RoughRiders announced Friday night that ticket windows open at 11 Saturday morning, with green-zone seats selling for $5. Fans also can purchase tickets anytime online at the team's Web site: www.roughridershockey.com.

"We go home, and we're hoping for a real enthusiastic, jacked-up crowd," Carlson said. "We'll go in tomorrow night and get after it. It's 60 minutes of hockey to decide this thing, and the better team is going to win."