Corridor Cross Checks: Nine shots on goal enough for Iowa Heartlanders to win a game

CEDAR RAPIDS — When your shots on goal totals go down each period, that’s generally not a good sign.

When your shots on goal total begins with four and decreases, well, you’ve got no chance to win a hockey game.

Err, scratch that.

The Iowa Heartlanders beat the Toledo Walleye, 2-1, Sunday night in Ohio despite a grand total of nine SOGs, the fewest in a game in club history. In order by period, that’d be four, three and two.

Toledo, meanwhile, had 31, outshooting Iowa in the third period, 14-2, without scoring. The Walleye opened the scoring in the first period, with Matthew Sop tying it later in the period and Mike Koster scoring in the second.

Riley Mercer was terrific in net to get the win.

“They don’t ask how many shots you had, they ask you how many wins you have,” Heartlanders Coach Chuck Weber said. “We hung tough, and I am proud of the guys for getting it done in a tough road environment in Toledo. We showed a lot of maturity handling it and coming out on top.”

This was the finale of a grueling three-in-three road weekend, so you couldn’t expect Iowa to have much juice. The Heartlanders split a pair of games at Cincinnati, losing Friday night, 9-2, and winning Saturday afternoon, 8-2 win.

Iowa scored the first five goals in that latter game, with Jack O’Brien picking up a hat trick. That win ended a five-game losing streak for the club, which is 5-5-1-0 for 11 standings points, second to Fort Wayne in the ECHL’s Central Division.

“I’m proud of the response the boys showed after Friday night,” Weber said. “We showed a lot of growth as a team this weekend.”

Iowa has played the most games of any team in the division, two more than Fort Wayne, Bloomington and Indy, three more than Kalamazoo and four more than Toledo and Cincinnati.

The Heartlanders have a home and home this weekend against Bloomington. Friday night’s 7 p.m. game is in Illinois, while Saturday’s 6 p.m. game is at Xtream Arena in Coralville.

Cedar Rapids RoughRiders

A win followed by a loss. A win followed by a loss.

That has been the pattern over the last 10 games for the RoughRiders. It continued this past weekend.

Cedar Rapids had a pair of home games, beating Dubuque, 5-3, on Friday night, then losing to Madison, 4-2. The Riders are 9-6-0-1 overall for 19 standings points.

In the rugged Eastern Conference of the United States Hockey League, that places them in a tie for fifth place with Madison. C.R. is one point out of fourth, four points out of third and five points out of second.

Muskegon leads the division with 28 points, on a 14-2 record. The Lumberjacks have won seven straight games.

The RoughRiders built leads of 3-0 and 4-1 against Dubuque. Grant Young, who sat out over a month with broken finger, completed a hat trick with an empty-net goal in the final minute to ice the game.

Cedar Rapids built a 2-0 first-period lead on Madison with goals from Justin Graf and Jackson Fox, but didn’t score again. Graf and fellow forward Jason Musa lead the Riders with 14 points each in 15 games, followed closely by David Bosco with 13 and Nick Romeo and Ruben Westerling with 12 each.

C.R. plays a pair of games this weekend at Green Bay, with a 7:05 opening faceoff Friday night and 6:05 Saturday night.

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com