Evansville, In.: The Thunderbolt struck early and often on Saturday night in front of over 4,000 fans at Ford Center, defeating the Rivermen 6-2 behind a hat trick from Scott Kirton and another strong performance from goaltender Trevor Gorsuch. The Thunderbolts’ next home game will be on Wednesday, January 11th against the Huntsville Havoc at 7:00pm CT. For tickets, call (812)422-BOLT (2658), go to EvansvilleThunderbolts.com, or visit the Ford Center Ticket Office.
The Thunderbolts were handed four power play chances in the first period, and they cashed in twice to take an early 2-0 lead. Fredrik Wink struck first at 4:13, assisted by Andrew Shewfelt, before Scott Kirton’s first goal at 5:38 from James Isaacs and Mike Ferraro made it 2-0 Thunderbolts. In the second period and on a stretch of 4-on-4 play, Wink scored again at 8:32 from Aaron Huffnagle to make it 3-0, followed by Huffnagle’s goal from Dillon Hill at 12:56 to give the Thunderbolts a dominant 4-0 lead through two periods.
In the third period, Kirton scored once again at 3:01, assisted by Ferraro and Brendan Harrogate to make it a 5-0 Thunderbolts lead. In the final 5 minutes, the Rivermen struck back twice to prevent a shutout, as Alec Baer scored at 15:40, followed by Alec Hagaman at 16:59 on a late power play. The Rivermen pulled goaltender Eric Levine for one last attempt at getting closer, however it instead set the table for Kirton to score his third goal of the game from about 150 feet down the ice at the 18:21 mark, assisted by Hayden Hulton and Kyle Thacker and rounding out the 6-2 Thunderbolts victory.
 Kirton scored three goals, Wink finished with two goals, while Huffnagle scored one goal and one assist. Ferraro finished with two assists, and Trevor Gorsuch stopped 41 of 43 shots faced for his 4th win of the season. These two teams meet again on February 24th at Peoria Civic Center.
