Photo Credit: Charlotte Rush

For a hockey season, you will win games a lot of different ways if your team is good. Tonight, the Elite and Premier teams of the Charlotte Rush each won their games a little differently. The Elite team won their game 4-1 in a dominating style that saw them get a lead and never relinquish it. The Infantry came back to fight and challenge in the third, but the Rush withstood it. The Premier team earned a 5-2 win on five unanswered goals. After two Infantry power play tallies, the Rush built momentum over time and worked to earn the victory in a penalty filled game.

Hear from Head Coach Troy Schwab and Asociate Head Coach Trevor Kleckner

On the night Schawab said

“ I thought our elite team played well. Some players found a new level that we hadn’t saw yet and it was much needed.

The D core for Elite is very good and those guys stepped up and played really well tonight.

I thought the Premier team was a little too anxious to start the season. We got away from our structure early because of it. Once we settled in a started playing our game, stuck with it, and we ended up getting the result we needed.

Give Columbia credit. Both those teams compete at a very high level and forced us to be at our best. Tomorrow we need to be ready to go.”

Kleckner added “On cutting down on penalties tomorrow I think our Premier team needs to just settle into the game. This was our first game of the season against a brand new organization with the same ownership group and a previous coach of the Rush. Emotions were high to start which caused penalties on both sides, but once we settled down and played our game we were rolling. We are the most effective when we stay out of the box and roll all of our lines, coming wave after wave. Tomorrow will be a test on how we, again, can handle our emotions as it’s our home opener. I think we saw how penalties effect us negatively tonight and I’m sure we’ll respond with a disciplined game tomorrow.”

In the Premier game, goaltending was the star of the evening. Parker Dietz kept his team in the fight all night making 58 saves on 63 shots for the Infantry. Nick Anderson only had to make 18 saves on 20 shots, but several of the ones he faced were grade a looks. Both teams play tomorrow in Charlotte for the series finale.

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