MAROTTA EARNS FIRST RUSH WIN IN OFFENSIVE SHOWCASE

(MOLINE, IL) – The Rapid City Rush had five different goal scorers and ten different players record a point, but Sam Marotta stole the show with his first win in a Rush uniform as his club defeated the Quad City Mallards by a 5-2 score on Saturday night. The win earns the Rush a split of their final two meetings head-to-head against Quad City this season.

Both teams left the first without an advantage, but managed to each find the scoreboard in the game. With 1:56 gone by in the game, Rush rookie Spencer Pommells received a turnover from Mallards defenseman Mike Monfredo, and beat Mallards goaltender Brody Hoffman to give the Rush a 1-0 lead (the goal was unassisted). Less than six minutes to play, however, Quad City tied things up at 1-1 as Raphael Bussieres hit Matt Carey with a pass through neutral ice. Carey had two men to beat on the play and did so, the last of those two being Rush net-minder Sam Marotta, with 5:36 left in the first.

The Rush dominated the second period, igniting the goal lamp three times in the frame. Cody Ferriero led off scoring as he deflected a Taylor Doherty shot from the blue line to put the Rush up for a second time at 2-1, 7:45 gone by in the second (Doherty and Ryan Misiak notched the helpers). Quad City evened it up again exactly 2:01 later, as Olivier Archambault broke into the Rush zone and backhanded a shot by Marotta in the slot to square up the game at 2-2 with 10:14 left in the period (Kyle Follmer and Matt Neal assisted). Following the goal, though, Archambault was assessed a slashing minor that put the Rush on their only power play of the game, and it cost his club down the stretch. Former Mallards defenseman Benjamin Dieude-Fauvel opened fire on the man-advantage and sent a slapshot by Hoffman up high to give his team their final go-ahead tally in the game at 3-2 with 9:10 left in the second (Danick Gauthier and James Melindy earned the helpers). The Rush doubled their lead and began to pull away from the Mallards after coincidental minors were assessed to Cody Ferriero and Zach Pochiro. Taylor Doherty took a pass from Pommells as a trailer into the zone and sent a wrist shot that whizzed by Hoffman. The Rush’s #4 scored number four in four-on-four for his team to expand the Rush lead to 4-2 with 6:18 left in the middle act (Pommells notched the lone assist, his second point of the game).

Destry Straight added insurance for the Rush and made it a 5-2 game with 11 minutes to go in regulation. Sean Erickson squeaked the puck into the Mallards zone, springing Daniel Barczuk for an attempt on net. Barczuk’s intial shot was kicked away by Hoffman, but the bounce came to Straight who slammed it in to give the Rush a 5-2 advantage, and end the scoring entries for the game (Erickson and Barczuk assisted).

Sam Marotta earned his first win in a Rush uniform, stopping 28 of 30 Mallards shots on his net (4-9-1 overall, 1-8-1 with Rush).

The Rush conclude their three-game-in-three night road trip with their final meeting of the season with the ECHL’s leading squad, the Missouri Mavericks. Puck drop is slated for 3:05 p.m. MST at Silverstein Eye Centers Arena.

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