Despite a valiant effort that saw the Horde put up 37 shots, the 10 skaters on the Horde bench could not hold off the Dung Beetles in the first round of the L5 summer playoffs and lost 6-3. The Dung Beetles opened the scoring at 11:01 of the first period when a shot from the point took a bad bounce and was deflected by goalie Peter Morrow into the goal. The Horde drew two penalties but were unable to capitalize and the Dung Beetles pounced on a loose puck and put it in late in the period to go up 2-0.
In the second period, despite outshooting the Dung Beetles, the Horde have up two more goals and opened the third trailing 4-0. Finally, the Horde offense took life in the game. Mark Paska opened the scoring at 11:58 of the third banging home a nice pass from Brian Hinderks. 4 minutes later, Jeff Nelson put in the rebound off a Jon Zimmerman shot from the point and followed that up with a goal of a series of passes from Dan Bolles and Jon Nygren. The Horde ultimately lost 6-3, but it was a good effort with a short bench, evidenced by the Horde keeping most of the play in the Dung Beetles’ end and outshooting the Dung Beetles in every period.
The Horde return to the ice Wednesday at Breck at 9:30 pm against their archrivals, the Diablos. This is the Horde’s final tune-up before the B-school championship on August 26.
