Prowlers Blow Lead in Baton Rouge

The Port Huron Prowlers blew a two-goal lead and fell to the Baton Rouge Zydeco 3-2 on November 21 in the FPHL’s only game of the night. It was the first time in franchise history Port Huron lost at the Raising Cane’s River Center.

“I think we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Prowlers assistant coach Alex Johnson. “We got too cute. I think sometimes when you get out to an early lead against a team like that, guys start to think it’s ‘point night’ and we can never think that. We have to keep our foot on the gas and play the way we play.”

The Prowlers took an early lead when, off an offensive zone faceoff, Gavin Fleck spun and backhanded home his first in the FPHL. Later in the period, his line struck again as Tucker Scantlebury danced around a Zydeco defender and beat Breandan Colgan from below the faceoff circle.

Baton Rouge chipped away starting on the power play in the second period. Brodie Thornton fired a shot through traffic to cut the Port Huron lead in half. Then 1:21 into the third, Thornton sent another power-play shot to the net that was tipped home by Kevin Szabad to tie the score.

“[Their power play was] running four high which has given us problems all year,” Johnson said. “We have a way to combat that and we’ll come back tomorrow.”

Later in the frame, the Zydeco got a rush and Matthew Gordon’s shot was deflected by Tyler Larwood and it fooled Valtteri Nousiainen. That turned out to be the game winner and Larwood was named the game’s first star.

Scantlebury added an assist to his goal and was the third star while Nousiainen took the loss with 26 saves.

A goal and an assist were good enough to get Thornton second-star honors while Colgan made 27 stops in the win.

The teams match back up on Friday, Nov. 22 at 8:05 P.M. eastern. That game will be streamed live on the PHP Network.

Photo courtesy of Delta Imaging