Topeka Mounts Late Comeback, but Can't Find Equalizer Fall 4-3

Topeka came into their inaugural season with their coach saying that the team he was building for was a team to beat Binghamton. The back-to-back champions came in thinking about a three peat. In professional sports such an achievement is near impossible but the Black Bears with back to back 143 point seasons seem poised to give it a run. As these two squads meet up for the playoffs it will be the test Coach Nichols was looking for.

The early game had a lot of back and forth but a roughing penalty to Steven Klinck gave the Black Bears the opening they needed as CJ Stubbs found a wide open Mac Jansen for the 1-0 lead 9:18 into the game. 3:48 later Nicholas Swain came down the far boards and picked his spot to beat Sammy Bernard for the 2-0 lead in the first period.

Late in the second period Binghamton struck again as at 14:57, once again on the power play, the Black Bears came in on the rush and CJ Stubbs went top shelf to beat Bernard for the 3-0 lead.

On yet another power play, this time a 5 on 3,  Stubbs found the back of the net a second time at 4:51 of the third to make it 4-0 Binghamton. Topeka refused to give up however and while on a penalty kill Steven Klinck picked off a pass and ripped a shot on Dominik Tmej that deflected away Klinck chased it down and put home the rebound to shrink the lead to 4-1 at 5:33 of the third period. Klinck found another one after receiving a feed from Cameron Clark and beat Tmej again to shrink the lead to 4-2 9:50 later. Topeka's Jacob Gagnon brought the Scarecrows back to within a goal with 36 seconds left to go on a shot from the far boards with the goalie pulled that found a path behind Tmej, but 4-3 was as close as Topeka could get. 

Bernard stopped 31 of 35 in the loss.

Topeka travels to Binghamton for game 2 Friday night for game two of the series at 7pm ET. Follow along on Youtube or on Sporfie.