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By: Josh Frojelin, Michael Seitz
El Paso 5 @ Louisiana 4 (SO) - El Paso defeated Louisiana 5-4 in a shootout last night. The Rhinos rode a four-goal second period to the victory. Louisiana opened the scoring on the power play with under two minutes remaining in the opening frame. It was Brendan Johnson scoring his ninth goal of the season. The second period opened as the first ended. This time Alexande Boyd grabbed his fifth tally of the season to push the Driller lead to two. El Paso finally broke through halfway through the middle frame as Jacob Mish pulled his team within one on the power play. The Rhinos continued to push and were rewarded with a pair of additional goals in the next four minutes. Joseph Gutierrez was credited with both tallies, his first two of the year. The exciting second ended with Louisiana’s Jake Bergstrom’s eight goal of the season to tie the game and Donovan Bradford’s sixth of the campaign to give El Paso the lead back with just six seconds to play. The Rhinos took a 4-3 advantage into the third period. Louisiana did not backdown and found themselves back on the powerplay midway through the final 20 minutes. It was once again Johnson scoring his team-leading 10 th goal of the year to tie the game at four. The marker would be enough to force overtime where both goaltenders stood their ground to push the game to a shootout. Nathan Graybill stopped 32 shots for El Paso while Finn Willson made 29 saves for the Drillers. Derrick Pedersen played hero for El Paso in the fourth round of a previously scoreless shootout to bring home the extra point for El Paso. The shootout defeat was only the second of any kind this year for Louisiana while El Paso picked up their eighth total point in 12 games.
