South Carolina Stingrays

Stingrays Week 17 Recap: All About Greenville

Vitek Vanecek wore the Golden Goalie jersey this past weekend. (via the Stingrays)

It is almost unheard of for two teams to do battle four consecutive times over the course of a week in a sport not named baseball. Nonetheless, that is what awaited the South Carolina Stingrays last week: Four meetings with intra-state rival Greenville Swamp Rabbits.

Night one on Tuesday featured in the North Charleston Coliseum, where Greenville spoiled Ladies Night with a 4-2 victory. Rays goaltender Mark Dekanich stopped 22 of 25 shots he faced in the effort.

Though the defense in front of him limited chances, especially in the second period where they only allowed three shots, two Swamp Rabbits goals in the first from Jordan Knackstedt and Vinny Saponari provided enough cushion for the visitors to protect.

Derek DeBlois scored in the first on a power play and Austin Fyten made the deficit one in the second, but not Ray could get the elusive tying goal. Bretton Cameron tallied the empty net power play goal to finish the night.

Switching venues to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena for Friday and Saturday, the Rays made Greenville their home for a few nights.

With Vitek Vanecek backstopping the Rays in a 31 save performance, North Charleston handed Greenville a 4-1 defeat.

All scoring came in the first period and it started with four consecutive Rays tallies. Stephan Vigier and Bobby Shea hit the twine on power plays, Brett Cameron made Greenville pay with a shorthanded goal, then Vigier made the lead four before Darian Dziurzynski got one past Vanecek on the extra-man.

The Rays went back to Dekanich to close out the visit to their intra-state rivals. All the scoring came at the same end of the ice in the Rays 4-3 overtime triumph.

Ryan Rashid beat Dekanich twice in the first for his eigth and ninth of the year; Vigier, Caleb Herbert and Jaredd Staal proceeded to slide pucks past Mackenzie Skapski in the middle frame; then Josh Nicholls tied the game again mid-third period.

Brett Cameron scored his 18th of the season to win the game for South Carolina and make for a happy road trip back to North Charleston.

Sunday, familiarity got to each of the teams as both struggled to score. Vanecek, in his special gold jersey, stopped 29 of 30 while Herbert and Vigier bookended a Knackstedt goal for a 2-1 win to end the week.

NEXT WEEK

The Germain Center will be mighty familiar to the Rays over this weekend, with all three of their next games coming there against the South Division-leading Florida Everblades.

CURRENT STANDING

53 games played, 3-17-4-2 (W-L-OTL-SOL), 66 points, 2nd in South Division

Max Wolpoff

Churchill High School graduate (2015) and current Boston University journalism student. Follow me on Twitter (@Max_Wolpoff) for game-day tweets or my random musings about being a college student.

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