The Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs fan base took refuge inside the Berglund Center Friday night as heavy downpours fell outside.
Few expected the deluge of goals that was to come inside, especially the 8 from the visiting Fayetteville Marksmen.
Rebounding from a 5-5 tie early in the third period, Fayetteville scored three times down the stretch to pull out the 8-5 Southern Professional Hockey League win in front of an announced crowd of 2,518.
The Dawgs were looking to avenge their season opening loss to the Marksmen a week earlier in North Carolina, and things got off to a good start early in the first period when Ben Bauer found the twine on a wrister past Marksmen goalie Dillon Kelley to give Roanoke a 1-0 lead.
Fayetteville wasted no time turning the tables, with a pair of power play goals at the 6:31 and 11:14 marks, before Roanoke returned the favor with a pair of power play tallies later in the period to head to the first intermission up 3-2.
The Dawgs would surge ahead 4-2 on Maxime Guyon’s goal only 28 seconds into the second period, but Fayetteville responded with the next three scores to head to the final 20 minutes up 5-4.
Just over three minutes into the final frame, Colin Murray deflected a Steve Mele shot past Kelley to knot things at 5, but the Marksmen took control with a trio of goals in a span of 2:01, the last at the 8:09 mark from Darren McCormack that completed the hat trick for the Fayetteville winger who only had one goal on the season entering Friday’s contest.
Things boiled over 15 seconds after the eighth Marksmen goal as Fayetteville’s Joe Osaka and Roanoke’s Cody Dion slugged it out before Dion was ejected as being the aggressor and Osaka got the thumb for verbal abuse of an official. Mele joined in the ruckus to draw a fighting penalty and 10-minute misconduct for verbal abuse.
Roanoke goalie Brad Barone started in net for the Dawgs before giving way to backup Tanner Creel to begin the third period.
Roanoke travels to Knoxville this Friday night before returning to the Berglund Center November 9-10 for a pair of games against Evansville.
Bill Turner
