SHREVEPORT, La. – Starting back play after having a month off, the East Texas Baptist University Tigers took the second game against Auburn University, 9-3, for their ninth win of the year. Auburn won on Friday night, 5-4, in a shootout before ETBU took the second game at Hirsch Coliseum in the battle of Tigers.
In game one, ETBU rallied from two goals down only to fall 5-4 in an overtime shootout. Flip Soderstrom tallied two goals while Davis Van Gemerden and Skyler Spiller notched the other two goals for ETBU. On Saturday, ETBU cruised to an easy 9-3 win in game two. Van Gemerden led the way with four goals while Soderstrom added a hat trick of his own. Spiller and Riley Knott would also pick up a goal in the win.
Game 1: Auburn 5, ETBU 4 (OT Shootout)
ETBU started the scoring with Soderstrom (16:13) picking up his first goal of the season. Auburn quickly answered with two goals (8:33, 7:20) to take a 2-1 lead after the first period. The lead would extend to 3-1 as Auburn (14:16) tacked on one more in the first period. Spiller (9:27) would manage to get one back halfway through the period. But as time winded down in the period, Auburn managed to get their fourth goal (0:25) to lead 4-2 through two periods.
ETBU would put together multiple opportunities to score only to be denied by Auburn's defense and the goaltending on Hayden Harris. ETBU would score on a power play from Van Gemerden (13:24) to make it 4-3. Then, Soderstrom knotted the game at four with seven minutes to play. Both teams put together chances, but were unable to come through as the game went into overtime. ETBU dominated the overtime session with multiple scoring chances but couldn't find the net. Auburn scored the first and only goal in the shootout to preserve the 5-4 win.
Game 2: ETBU 9, Auburn 3
In sixty-nine seconds to start the game, Auburn would strike for two goals (19:30, 18:51) to grab an early 2-0 lead. However, the game would swing in ETBU's momentum as they would score nine unanswered goals for the remainder of the first and all of the second period. Soderstrom (17:41) would strike first for ETBU with his third goal of the series before Van Gemerden ran off three straight goals (13:22, 10:11, 7:34) to complete a hat trick and a 4-2 lead. Skyler Spiller (2:13) then knotted a power play goal resulting in a 5-2 lead with two periods to go.
ETBU would manage to score four more goals in the second period as Soderstrom (16:15, 6:31) tallied two to complete his hat trick while Knott (18:45) and Van Gemerden (0:32) each added goals as well to go up 9-2 heading into the third. Auburn would manage to get their third goal in the third period at 6:13, but couldn't grab anymore as Tyler Fitzgerald slammed the door shut on scoring chances.
ETBU will return back to Hirsch Coliseum next weekend as they will take on Texas State University on Friday and Saturday. Both games will start at 2:00 PM.
