BY WARREN KOZIRESKI —
Rochester overcame a 3-0 deficit with three, third period goals and won the game in overtime as Brett Murray, playing in his first game since April 3rd, banged in the rebound of a Mason Jobst shot to allow the Amerks to extend their best-of-five North Division semi-final series with Syracuse to a fifth game in Rochester Friday night.
The final 20 minutes of regulation was the Brandon Biro show as he redirected a pass from the right corner from defenseman Joseph Cecconi as he was standing backdoor just 19 seconds in.
Ten minutes later it was Lukas Rousek finding Cecconi standing at the far post to close the gap to 3-2 with a secondary assist from Biro. And Biro tied the game off a perfect pass from Rousek with 5:12 remaining in regulation to send the game into overtime.
“It feels great to be back with my teammates,” Murray said. “We’ve created such a special bond here that watching my brothers fight without me was difficult.
“But getting back in the lineup today and winning in such dramatic fashion just brings us closer and it felt great to be back. Thank God it didn’t go any longer because it (his injury) might start feeling a little sore.”
Syracuse built a 3-0 lead over the first two periods and made it stand up in a xx-xx victory to take game four and the best-of-five North Division semi-final series three-games-one.
Cole Koepke redirected a point shot from Emil Lilleberg four minutes into eh contest and, after a Crunch goal was disallowed due to goaltender interference later in the period, netted two in the second period.
Rookie forward Waltteri Merela, who scored the game-winner in double-overtime in game three, scored his second of the series on a rebound from a Gage Goncalves shot at 3:53 of the second.
Syracuse got a power play goal from Alex Barre-Boulet at 7:02 to extend the lead to 3-0.
Rochester had their chances throughout with several players getting off shots while standing alone in front of the crease along with an extended second period power play, but Syracuse netminder Brandon Halverson stopped them all.
Until the third period.
“You work all year for moments like that and we’re not out of it until zeros hit the clock and it’s nice to change the roles a little bit because they’ve come back on us a few times this year when we were up a few goals, so it definitely feels nice to be on the other end of that,” Biro said.
“It would have been easy being defeatist going into the third and we weren’t at all tonight,” Rochester head coach Seth Appert said.
Game five is Fri. May 10th at 7pm in Rochester with the winner to face the victor of the Cleveland-Belleville series in the division finals.
