It was a sweep of a weekend for the Tulsa Oilers hockey team, winning three straight games at home against the Rapid City Rush.
Tulsa shut out the Rush in the first game of the series on Friday, 2-0, at the WeStreet Ice Center. Oilers’ Jake Sibell was superb in goal and made 32 saves in the game to earn his first professional shutout.
Tulsa’s Jonny Hooker broke the scoreless tie at 2:34 into the third period, by poking the puck through the crease into the net. It was his first professional goal. Then two minutes later, Hooker scored again to seal the win for the Oilers.
On Saturday night at the BOK Center, Tulsa’s offense was on fire, besting Rapid City 7-5.
After the Rush took a 3-0 lead in the first period, Tulsa responded with Andrei Bakanov scoring on a power-play in the final 11 seconds of the period.
Josh Nelson brought the Oilers within one just 2:11 into the second period, but then Simon Mack put the Rush up 4-2 with a long-distance shot from the blue line just 36 seconds later.
At 7:23 of the second period, Bakanov scored his second goal of the game to make the score 4-3. Bakanov completed his hat trick with another power-play goal, tying the game at 4-4.
Tulsa took the lead in the third period when German Yavas scored his first as an Oiler with 2:54 remaining in the game.
Ryan Lautenbach added an empty netter with two minutes remaining and Drew Elliott extended the Oilers lead to 7-4 with an empty-net goal at the 18:25 mark. Seth Fyten of Raphid City scored a goal with 39 seconds remaining, closing the score at 7-5.
On Sunday afternoon, Tulsa came away with a 6-3 win over the Rush, to close out the series sweep.
Scoring for the Oilers were Drew Elliott, Justin Michaelian, Lukas Jirousek, Ryan Lautenbach, Michael Davies and Owen Lindmark.
The Oilers have now won four in a row and travel to Allen, Texas, this weekend for a three-game series against the Americans. The next home game for the Oilers is March 25 at 7:05 p.m. against the Trois-Rivières Lions.
ORU BASEBALL AT HOME
The ORU baseball team is at home this weekend to host Arkansas State in a three-game series at Chapman Park.
The starting times for the series are Friday at 6:00 p.m., Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
Tickets are still available for upcoming games against Oklahoma at Chapman Park on March 31 at 6:00 p.m., and against OSU at ONEOK Field on April 28 at 6:00 p.m.
TULSA BEACON RADIO
Tune in to “Tulsa Beacon Weekend” radio show every week, featuring interviews with local and national guests, talking about everything from politics to family issues. This week, my guest will be Rhys Martin, executive director of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association. The show airs on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. CST on 970am KCFO.