OMAHA, NE. - The Lancers took on the Waterloo Black Hawks at Liberty First Credit Union Arena before heading into the holiday break. The Lancers had come off a 1-0 victory over Sioux City last night, while the Black Hawks came off a disappointing 4-1 loss to the Des Moines Buccaneers. The Lancers held a 41-33-5-4 regular season record against the 'Hawks dating back to November of '02 coming into tonight's contest.
The first period was controlled by the Lancers, as Omaha's forecheck would suffocate Waterloo throughout; disabling any quality scoring chances for the Black Hawks.
The lone goal of the first period would come from Lancer forward Vincent Salice, who caught Waterloo netminder Emmett Croteau sleeping a bit, as Salice would send it 5-hole to make it 1-0 Lancers at the end of the opening frame.
The second period had more scoring, but the Lancers were not as sharp in the second, a frame of hockey in which has haunted Omaha throughout the season.
In spite of Omaha's struggles early on in the second, Lancer forward Luke Amell would extend Omaha's lead at 2-0 after deflecting a shot from the point which would give Amell his first USHL point in his early tenure; congratulations to Luke Amell.
However, Waterloo would unfortunately spoil the fun as Lancer defenseman Luke Baker would shatter his stick off an attempted one time shot from the point, as a result Waterloo would take full advantage of that, as they would go on an odd-man rush and forward Connor Brown would put it past Lancer goaltender Michael Hrabal in what was one of the more lucky sequence of events for the Black Hawks.
Not long after, Waterloo would score again, this time off the stick of forward Gavin O'Connell who would send it past Hrabal from the faceoff dot; tying it all up heading into the third at two apiece.
The third period started with a Waterloo goal as it was Oliver Flynn who found the back of the net.
However, the Waterloo goal seemed to wake up Omaha, as the Lancers would dominate from that point on, as the Lancers would pressure Emmett Croteau before finally breaking the dam with a Aleksi Kivioja goal off the draw to tie it at three forcing an eventual overtime.
The overtime was rather sloppy from both sides, as turnovers would be the theme throughout, and so with that they would go to a shootout.
In the shootout Waterloo would ultimately prevail as Myles Hilman would cap it off with a 4-3 Waterloo victory in spite of the Lancers controlling the majority of the game.
The Lancers are back in action Friday, December 30th at Liberty First Credit Union Arena against the Lincoln Stars. Puck drop is at 7:05 CST. You can catch the game on Mixlr or FloSports.
