Ice Dogs have their day - again/ Gold Kings can't halt losing ways

Long Beach's Kelly Askew scored his second goal of the game with 4:01 to play as the Ice Dogs continued their mastery of the Gold Kings at World Arena with a 4-3 victory in front of 3,890 Friday.

The Ice Dogs have won five of seven games on the Gold Kings' home ice since coming into the league two years ago and own a 4-1 series edge this season against Colorado.

Askew's goal spoiled a solid effort by the Gold Kings, who twice came up with clutch goals to tie the game in the third period.

Zac Boyer, the Gold Kings' leading scorer, notched his 18th goal of the season at 12:30 of the first, the only goal of the period. Long Beach (26-21-1) came back with a solid second period. Goals by Askew and Chris Kenady gave the Ice Dogs a 2-1 lead heading into the third period.

Less than 1 minute into the final period, Colin Chaulk evened the score at 2-2. The Ice Dogs regained the lead on a Jeff Attard goal 3 minutes into the period. Colorado regrouped and tied the game on a spectacular play from Greg Schmidt.

Trailing 3-2 after Attard's goal, Gold Kings defenseman Aaron Boh took the puck in the Gold Kings zone. He stickhandled down the ice and made a perfect pass to Schmidt at the right circle and Schmidt buried it past Long Beach's Marten Engren to tie the score at 3-3.

But Askew converted a turnover in the Gold Kings zone into the game-winning goal a few minutes later.

The two teams last played on Dec. 12 with the Gold Kings winning 2- 0.

Since then, the two teams have headed in different directions. Colorado has gone 15-5-3 while Long Beach is just 10-14.

Friday night, backup goal-tender Dan Ragusett got his first home start of the season due to an illness to regular goalie Kirk Daubenspeck. Ragusett shut out the Ice Dogs in the first period and kept the Gold Kings in the game despite the lackluster second period.

"He played well tonight," coach Al Pedersen said of Ragusett. "But that second period hurt us. We had our chances but didn't take advantage of them."

With the loss and Idaho's win over Tacoma, the Gold Kings failed to gain any ground on the Steelheads in the chase for the Northern Division title.

Copyright 2002
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