SAVANNAH, GA – Leading by one going into the third period, the South Carolina Stingrays found goals from a pair of rookies, Kaden Bohlsen and Ludwig Persson, to secure a 6-3 victory over the Savannah Ghost Pirates on Friday night at Enmarket Arena. With the win, the Stingrays’ magic number to clinch home-ice advantage in the South Division Semifinals is down to one.
South Carolina (44-23-1-3) wasted no time opening the scoring on the road. Zac Funk scored 2:24 in giving the Stingrays a 1-0 lead. Less than two minutes later, Simon Pinard doubled the lead on a breakaway putting South Carolina ahead 2-0.
The Stingrays went to the power play just past the midway mark of the first and capitalized. Dean Loukus punched home his ninth goal of the season with 7:19 left in the opening frame, building the lead to three.
Savannah (35-33-3-1) would not go away quietly. Reece Vitelli cut the Stingrays lead to two with 5:53 left in the frame on a deflection. The Stingrays took the two-goal lead to the second, and found a response in the opening minute of the middle frame.
Josh Wilkins cleaned up a rebound on a shot from Romain Rodzinski that gave South Carolina a three-goal lead again, 4-1, just 40 seconds into the second.
After the goal from Wilkins, the Ghost Pirates started to chip away. Connor Gregga scored on the power play before Liam Walsh cut the South Carolina advantage down to one, 4-3, with 5:18 left in the frame.
With the one-goal lead, the Stingrays pulled away in the third. Kaden Bohlsen lifted a backhand over the shoulder of Ghost Pirates netminder Vinnie Purpura, pushing South Carolina ahead by two again, 5-3. Ludwig Persson found himself on a breakaway in the final five minutes of regulation and buried his ninth goal of the season, sealing the 6-3 victory for South Carolina.
In the win, Pinard had a multi-point effort, eclipsing 70 points on the season. It is the 20th time in Stingrays franchise history a player has reached 70 points in a season.
South Carolina had six different goal scorers on the night as Jalen Luypen and Persson joined Pinard with multi-point games. Seth Eisele stopped 21 of 24 shots for his 18th win of the season.