Weekend wrap-up: Topeka claims #2 seed in South with win

Odessa 1 @ Topeka 3 - In the final game of the 2011-12 NAHL regular season, the Odessa Jackalopes dropped a 3-1 decision Sunday evening to the Topeka RoadRunners at Kansas ExpoCentre in Topeka. With the win Topeka secured the #2 seed in the South Division.  Although even in points (80) with the Texas Tornado, the RoadRunners captured the tie-breaker because of more regular season wins.  In the second game of a season-ending weekend series with the ‘Runners, Odessa captain Willie Faust and defenseman Curt Rau made their long-awaited returns from injury and Jacks goaltender Justin Davis made his first start since February 11th. On Sunday, Topeka started the scoring at 16:53 of the first period when Sean Gaffney redirected a Trace Strahle shot past Davis’ outstretched left pad to stake the RoadRunners to a 1-0 lead. Topeka doubled their advantage early in the second period when a Jake Lynes wrister ricocheted over Davis at 2:36. It took until the final minute of regulation for the Jacks to get on the board, but with just under 30 seconds remaining in the game, with the extra-attacker on, Taylor Portner tipped a Mikko Virtanen shot through traffic and past Topeka netminder Peter Traber to cut the RoadRunner lead to one before Brian Christi sealed a Topeka win with an empty-netter at 19:56.  Topeka goalies Peter Traber and Collin LeMay had to face just 10 shots in the win. Boxscore

Jamestown 1 @ Traverse City 6 – It was the Will Badner show on Sunday as the North Stars forward from Cadillac, Michigan scored four of Traverse City’s six goals as the North Stars finished their regular season with a 6-1 win over Jamestown.  Blake Kelley scored first for the Ironmen, but that was answered by three straight goals in the 2nd period by Badner, along with goals in the 3rd period from Jared Van Wormer, Kyle Schempp and Badner’s 4th goal of the game.  Zach Nagelvoort made 19 saves in the win. Boxscore

Chicago 2 @ St. Louis 16 – The Bandits set a NAHL season-high for goals in a game with 16 as they completed a three-game weekend sweep of the Hitmen, outscoring Chicago 34-4 in the three game series.  All but one player recorded at least one point in the Bandits win.  Three St. Louis players had five-point games, Josh Dangel, Joe Birmingham and Joe Kalisz.  Ryan Stouffer along with Kalisz had hat-tricks and Patrick Pollock, Rance Hughes and Stouffer had four-point games.  The 16 goals in one game is the most in modern (2003-Present) NAHL history. Boxscore