Zydeco Come from Behind Yet Again to Beat Columbus 5-4 In A Shootout

This team, y’all. We’re only 15 games into the season, but it’sclear exactly what this team’s identity is: Never Quit.

Tonight, in Columbus, the Zydeco and River Dragons went back and forth all night long in a spirited game that went 65 minutes plus six rounds in the shootout. It started out with Kevin Szabad set up on mini breakaway by Elijah Wilson to score his 7th of the season. The River Dragons would answer back before period’s end as Alexander Jmaeff would tie things up 1-1.

The second period saw the River Dragons flip the script on the Zydeco and carried a majority of the offensive zone time. That did stop Brodie Thornton from carrying the puck through the neutral zone and sniping the top right corner of the net to give the Zydeco a 2-1 lead. Once again, Columbus answered back. Just after a penalty expired, a gift 2 on 0 Jestin Somero feed Ryan Galvin to tie it at 2. 

In the third, Elijah Wilson opened up the scoring as Ethan Matchim made a great pass to Wilson who was in all alone and beat William Lavalliere for his 9th of the season. Columbus would answer again with Jestin Somero finding a hole in Breandan Colgan with 11:58 left to play. The Zydeco found themselves heading to the penalty box a bit too often in the third, and for the first time in the game, Columbus took the lead thanks to a Kirk Underwood point shot that found its way through a maze of bodies. 

In his 100th career FPHL game, Elijah Wilson would come up clutch again for the Zydeco. On the powerplay, Wilson unloaded a wrist shot from just above the top of the circles that tied the game at four and sent the game to overtime. 

It was a wide open overtime that saw both teams nearly end the game, but eventually we went to the third consecutive shootout for the Zydeco. It took six rounds, but thanks to goals from Dmitry Kuznetsov and a game winner from Elijah Wilson, the Zydeco pulled out their 6th straight win. 

Baton Rouge improves to 12-3-0-1 and head home for thanksgiving. The next game for the Zydeco will be tomorrow night against the Columbus River Dragons for the third game of the “Thanksgiving Week Gauntlet”, and the only home game.You can catch the game on YouTube for that contest. Puck drop is at 7:05, and pre-game show starts at 6:40.