Mavericks Season Ends In Game Seven Loss To Allen, 7-3

The Missouri Mavericks were defeated by the Allen Americans, 7-3, Tuesday night in Game Seven of the Central Hockey League (CHL) Semifinals.  For the second straight season, the Mavericks’ season ended in Game 7 and the team was just one win short of reaching the CHL Finals.  Allen jumped out to an early lead in the game and held the lead throughout.  Brian McMillin and Todd Robinson each had two goals in the win for the Americans and goaltender Aaron Dell stopped 29 of the Mavericks’ 32 shots.  The Americans advance to take on the Wichita Thunder in the CHL Finals.  The Mavericks will host a season celebration at Independence Events Center on Thursday, April 26 from 5-8 p.m.

Allen jumped out to a 1-0 lead early into the game when McMillin scored his seventh goal of the playoffs on assists from Jason Deitsch and Jamie Schaafsma at the 1:52 mark.  Missouri rebounded and controlled the play for the second half of the period but were unable to get a puck past Dell in the opening 20 minutes.

A total of five goals were scored in the second period.  Allen made it a 2-0 game on Deitsch’s third goal of the playoffs.  The Mavericks cut the lead in half at the 5:37 mark of the period on a sharp-angled shot by Kellan Tochkin.  He was assisted by Kenton Miller and JP Testwuide, but the Americans regained the two-goal lead on a nice individual effort by Kale Kerbashian.  He shook a Mavericks’ defender and beat goaltender Mike Clemente with a backhand goal to give the Americans a 3-1 lead.  Mavericks’ defenseman Dave Pszenyczny scored his first goal of the playoffs on the power play with two minutes to go in the second period and again the Mavericks cut the lead to one goal, but Allen answered less than one minute later.  At the 18:40 mark, Robinson scored on the power play and the Americans took the 4-2 lead into the final period.

The Mavericks pressured the Americans for a majority of the final period, but a turnover in the Mavericks’ zone which led to Robinson’s second goal of the game made it 5-2 Allen.  Jim McKenzie made it 6-2 when he tipped a shot by Tyler Ludwig past Clemente.  Missouri didn’t give in and Colt King scored to make it 6-3 with an extra attacker with over five minutes to go in the game, but the Americans finally sealed the win with 67 seconds to go on an empty net goal by McMillin.