Moline, Ill.:  In a complete 60-minute effort, the Thunderbolts played to their potential and finished the weekend by defeating the Quad City Storm 6-2 at Vibrant Arena on Saturday night, led by Matt Dorsey’s two goals. The Thunderbolts next home game will be on Friday, December 1st against the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs, puck drop at 7:00pm CT.
The game began with an opening face-off fight as Matt Hobbs squared off with Quad City’s Michael Moran, setting the stage for how the Thunderbolts would battle throughout the game and be rewarded for it. Evansville picked up a 2-0 lead early in the first period as Scott Kirton scored on the power play from Colton Kalezic and Mike Ferraro at 5:16, followed by Dorsey’s first goal at 8:15 from Lincoln Hatten and Dmitry Yushkevich. The Storm rallied, as Nicola Levesque scored late in the first period and Matt Ustaski scored in the opening minute of the second period to tie the game at 2-2.
Instead of folding under pressure, the Thunderbolts countered with four unanswered goals to streak ahead to a 6-2 lead through two periods; The first two goals came only 47 seconds apart as Kalezic scored from Bair Gendunov at 6:07, before Ferraro’s goal at 6:55 from Brendan Harrogate and Kirton made it a 4-2 game. Dorsey picked up his second goal from Harrogate at 15:30, and Gendunov rounded out the goal scoring at 19:11, assisted by Kalezic and Mark Zhukov to make it a 6-2 game. The Thunderbolts shut things down in the third period, with no goals on either side as the Thunderbolts secured their first road win of the season.
Dorsey led the scoring with two goals, Kalezic picked up a goal and two assists, while Gendunov, Kirton and Ferraro each finished with a goal and assist. Harrogate tallied a pair of assists while Cole Ceci finished with 35 saves on 37 shots for his first professional win. The Thunderbolts and Storm meet once again on Friday, December 29th at Vibrant Arena.
