Riders creap closer to 1st with 4-2 win over Green Bay

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders found the secret to beating Green Bay last night. It's really pretty simple apparently.

“We didn't have to go to the shootout,” said Riders captain Jayson Megna. “That's nice.”

So was just about everything regarding this 4-2 victory before 3,273 fans at The Stable.

Megna jumped back into the USHL goal-scoring lead with a pair of important third-period markers, including a deflection that capped off one beautiful play by teammate Justin Kovacs. A loose puck came back to Kovacs at the left point, he skated through open ice and into the circle, spun around a defender and let go with a backhander that Megna tipped past Green Bay goalie Ryan McKay.

That gave Cedar Rapids a 3-2 lead with 12 minutes to go, and that was it. Sam Warning scored into an open net at the buzzer for the final margin.

Nice comeback win for the Riders, who trailed 1-0 and 2-1 despite outplaying the Gamblers most of the way. Frustration was not an option.

“It's all how you react to it as a team,” said RoughRiders Coach Mark Carlson. “We don't get down if we're down a goal or down two goals. A one-goal game is a one-shot game and a two-goal game is a two-shot game. Keep everything positive and just keep playing.”

“We just kept battling, kept putting pucks at the cage,” said Megna, who has 20 goals this season. “We stuck to our game plan, knowing that eventually they were going to go in. It worked out for us.”

The win exacted a little bit of revenge for back-to-back shootout losses to Green Bay two weeks ago. The RoughRiders (21-5-4, 46 points) pulled within two points of Green Bay (23-8-2, 48 points) for the lead in the USHL's Eastern Conference, with Cedar Rapids holding three games in hand.

These two teams, who have the best point totals overall in the league, play again Saturday night in Wisconsin. Cedar Rapids hosts Muskegon on Friday night.

“It's always nice to win a game, you know?” Carlson said, when asked about the importance of this victory. “I thought we played well in those other two games as well. We played well again tonight and found a way to get it done.”

The RoughRiders outshot Green Bay a whopping 19-6 margin in the first period but couldn't find a way to beat McKay. That included two very early power plays and a missed penalty shot attempt by Peter Maric.

Then Robert Francis scored a power-play goal early in the second for the Gamblers, and it looked like it might not be C.R.'s night. But Kovacs tied it in the final minute of the period with a laser point shot on the power play into the top corner of the net.

Travis Lynch deflected a shot near the blueline past Riders goalie Brady Hjelle five minutes into the third, but the Riders rallied with Megna's first goal just 1:41 later.

Here are videos of Maric's penalty shot and a link to the game boxscore:

http://ushl.stats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=1341529

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