By Kevin Scott
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CODY, Wyo., January 22, 2016 — The Great Falls Americans, sitting on top of the Frontier Division with a 25-8-2 record, are just .500 when it comes to playing against the Cody, Wyoming based Yellowstone Quake (21-7-3) this season.
During the Americans second and third games of the season, they traveled to the Quake’s home ice and ended up winning both of their weekend series contests including a 4-3 overtime win and a 5-1 victory.
In October, the Great Falls NA3HL hockey franchise suffered identical 2-1 losses to Yellowstone at the Great Falls Ice Plex on back-to-back nights.
The Yellowstone Quake led throughout most of the game against Great Falls after scoring twice in the first two periods and hung on to a 5-3 win over the Americans at Riley Arena on Friday night.
Both NA3HL teams scored twice during the opening period. Great Falls utilized their power play advantage to take their only lead of the game on a goal by junior hockey veteran Wade Wylie early on. Tanner Congdon and Ricards Bernhards picked up the assists. The Quake rallied and eventually took a 2-1 lead. Jake Dickison and Reed Kelly each added a goal to their season totals. Nicholas Elliot, Justin Berezinski and Max Doner each received an assist. Before the end of the first twenty minutes, Tanner Congdon netted a goal over Yellowstone goalie Lance Knudson. The Americans took twice the amount of shots (on-goal) than the home team (14-7) and each team had one minor penalty.
The team from Cody, Wyoming increased their lead to 4-2 with two goals coming during the middle stanza. Jake Dickison chipped in his second goal in as many periods while Nicolas Elliot added his first score after picking up an assist in the first period. Elliot’s points came off a penalty shot near the eight-minute mark. Despite trailing by two goals, Great Falls still held a 28-23 margin in the shots-on-goal category after forty minutes of ice time.
Tegan Harrington connected on a short-handed score thanks to forward Josh Larson, who provided the assists to trim the Quake’s lead to 4-3 in the final period. The third place Quake added one more goal near the end of the period by Tony Dahlberg to lift them to another win over the Montana squad.
Jake Dickison led both teams in scoring with two goals while teammates Nicholas Elliot scored once and dished out one assist. Tanner Congdon also finished with one goal and one assist in the loss for the top-ranked Americans team. Josh Larson tallied two assists.
Despite the loss, Great Falls managed to take 38 shot attempts while allowing 35 for Yellowstone.
Both NA3HL squads had four minor penalties for eight minutes in penalty time.
Lance Knudson, the Quake’s starting goaltender, played all 60 minutes while accumulating 35 saves in the win. Jake Stephan had trouble keeping the pucks out of the net and ended his night with 30 but allowed five goals for the visiting team.
NEXT CONTEST: The Americans play their final regular season game in Wyoming on Saturday, January 23rd against the Yellowstone Quake with the action beginning at 7:30PM.