MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com- Jeff Mason and Adam Hobson both tallied a goal in a shootout to lift the Gwinnett Gladiators to a 5-4 victory over the South Carolina Stingrays Thursday night at the Arena at Gwinnett Center. Andy Brandt scored the first goal of the night for the Gwinnett Gladiators at 2:33 of the first period. South Carolina netminder Bobby Goepfert slid to the right of the net to block a shot but it slipped away and bounced off to his left back in front of the net where Brandt was waiting to put it in.

Adam Hobson made it 2-0 just three and a half minutes later on another goal scored from directly in front of the net. Adam Berti notched his second helper of the night on Hobson’s marker.

Berti notched his fourth goal of the season and third point of the night at 9:19 of the first period to push the Gladiators lead to three. As the goal light went off, Goepfert looked around, not sure where the puck was.

Almost three minutes later, Jeff Corey skated in on Fallon’s glove side and then passed it to Maxime Lacroix who was coming in on Fallon’s stick side. Fallon slid over to block the shot, but was late and the puck found its way in next to his goal pad and Lacroix finally put the rays on the board at 12:10.

Berti contributed once again to the Gladiators’ fourth goal of the evening, which was scored by Daniel Sullivan on the power play at 12:23 of the second period. Travis Fuller also tallied an assist on the Sullivan goal.

Michael Dubuc of the Stingrays cut Gwinnett’s lead in half with 10 seconds left to go in the middle stanza on a pass from Sasha Pokulok and Brad Farynuk. Later, Farynuk brought the contest within one for South Carolina at the 4:04 mark of the final period when the puck found its way through Fallon’s five-hole.

Lacroix finally tied up the game with 6:28 left to go, with his second marker of the evening sending the contest into overtime.

Both Fallon and Goepfert held the opposition scoreless through five minutes of overtime to take the contest to a shootout. Both Jeff Mason and Hobson scored on Goepfert, while Fallon held all four shooters from the Stingrays off the board. The last time the Gladiators won a shootout in front of the hometown crowd was nearly a year ago.

The Gladiators take the ice next on the road on Friday, January 9th as they visit the South Carolina Stingrays in North Charleston at 7:30 p.m.

Began in 1988-89 with five teams playing in four states, the Premier ’AA’ Hockey League has grown into a coast-to-coast league that will have 21 teams in 16 states and British Columbia playing 864 games from Oct. 17, 2008 to Apr. 4, 2009. Eighteen of the 23 teams have played at least five years in their current city.

The third-longest tenured professional hockey league behind only the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League, the ECHL averaged 4,174 per game last season, marking the fourth year in row and the 16th time in the last 18 years that the league has averaged over 4,000 fans. The league has drawn over four million fans each of the last five years and 11 times in the past 12 seasons.

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