Casey Harris Helps Spark Prowlers Past Mississippi

With celebrity player Casey Harris in the lineup, the Port Huron Prowlers scored five unanswered goals to defeat the Mississippi Sea Wolves 5-1. Harris received the loudest roars from the crowd for his two fights in the third period.

“It’s always fun to have him in the locker room,” said Prowlers assistant coach Alex Johnson. “He brought great vibes to the room, giving a speech before the game. Great to have him out there, a couple fights were great to see.”

Same as their first meeting of the season, Mississippi opened the scoring 20 seconds in as Lucas Piekarczyk intercepted a clearing attempt from Valtteri Nousiainen and put the puck in the vacated cage. Same as their first meeting of the season, Nousiainen was perfect the rest of the way.

The Port Huron offense awoke late in the second. Reggie Millette ripped a five-on-three power play goal from the left-wing circle then, 1:07 later, Brett Lockhart kept the puck in at the point, he fired a pass to Stefan Diezi in tight and he slipped a shot through Edward Coffey who stopped most, but not all of the shot. All of a sudden, the Prowlers had the lead heading into the third.

They kept their foot on the gas there. Five minutes in, Matt Graham made a steal in his own end to start a rush. He sent a rink-wide pass to Alex Johnson who one-timed it home to extend the lead to two. Five minutes later, Tristan Simm sent a shot from the point off a faceoff win that Coffey stopped, Isiah Parris cleaned up the rebound with a backhander. 

“It was exactly what we drew up,” Parris said. “[Coach Graham] and I talked about it, to go to the net, and I got the rebound and was able to score.”

Johnson struck again a few minutes later when an attempted pass-off-pad to a charging Matt Graham ended up getting past Coffey and sliding to the back of the net. That helped Port Huron secure its season-high fourth-straight win.

“That win against Binghamton [a couple of weeks ago] really brought the team together,” Johnson said. “We’ve been fired up ever since, we’ve been putting goals on the board and we’ll look to keep that hot streak alive.”

Johnson was the first star with his two goals, while Parris added an assist to his tally. Graham dished out three helpers and Simm added two. Nousiainen stopped the final 24 shots he saw.

Coffey made 29 saves in the loss.

The Prowlers meet the Sea Wolves again on Jan. 18 with puck drop scheduled for 6:05 P.M. Tickets are available at phprowlers.com/tickets.