Mavericks Lose to Wichita, 6-2

The Missouri Mavericks (28-21-5) were defeated by the Wichita Thunder, 6-2, Sunday evening at INTRUST Bank Arena.  In the win, the Thunder won their sixth game over the Mavericks this season and the Independence Cup presented by Independence Tourism.  Wichita forward Ian Lowe had two goals and four players had multiple point games for the Thunder.  Missouri got goals from John-Scott Dickson and Kenton Miller, but the Mavericks are now 0-2-1 in their last three games.  Dickson’s goal gave him 100 with the Mavericks, and he is now the fourth player in team history to score at least 100 points with Missouri.  The Mavericks will return home for a game on Tuesday, March 5 against the Bloomington Blaze at Independence Events Center.
“We were beat in every aspect of the game,” said Mavericks’ Head Coach Scott Hillman.  “It was a very disappointing weekend for our team.  We played one very good game out of three and gained one point out of six.  That leaves two-thirds of our performances lacking execution and a great number of points were lost because of it.”
The Thunder jumped out to a 3-0 lead less than 16 minutes into the game on two goals by Lowe and one goal by Les Reaney.  Mavericks’ goaltender Mike Clemente was pulled in favor of Ryan Daniels who was seeing his first game action since signing with the Mavericks last week.
The Thunder held the 3-0 lead until the final few seconds of the second period when Kevin Young’s slapshot beat Daniels with four seconds to go in the middle frame.
Chad Painchaud gave the Thunder a 5-0 lead at 6:58 of the third period.  The Mavericks were nearly shutout until John-Scott Dickson tapped in a rebound for his 20th goal of the season and 100th point with the Mavericks.  He becomes just the fourth player in Mavericks’ history to score 100 points with the team.  Dickson’s goal came at the 17:24 mark, and just 19 seconds later, Kenton Miller scored his 20th goal of the season to make it 5-2 in favor of the Thunder.  Neil Trimm scored Wichita’s second power play goal of the game with just eight seconds remaining in regulation to finalize the scoring at 6-2.
Missouri finished 0-for-2 on the power play and the Thunder was 2-for-4.  Wichita outshot the Mavericks 39-20.
The Mavericks will return home on Tuesday, March 5 to take on the Bloomington Blaze.