Franchise Record Crowd Sees 'Cats Battle But Fall To 'Birds 5-3 In St Jude Showdown

WYTHEVILE, VA-

A franchise-record crowd of 2,888 packed Hitachi Energy Arena on Saturday night as the Blue Ridge Bobcats and twin City Thunderbirds battled for a great cause in the St Jude Showdown/Hockey Fights Cancer game. The bitter rivals put their animosities aside and skated for the fight against childhood cancer with both teams wearing specialty Stick It To Cancer uniforms, proceeds from the auctions of which went to St Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Blue Ridge jumped out to an early 2-0 lead thanks to a snipe from Dustin Jesseau, his 7th goal in 6 games as a Bobcat. Zach Ross followed with his first professional goal to double the lead just 37 seconds later.

Twin City responded with three unanswered in the final half of the opening frame. Jan Salak converted on the power play, followed exactly six minutes later with a snipe from Dionne Demke. Gus Ford connected two minutes later to put the Thunderbirds ahead 3-2 after twenty minutes, which is where the score stood until the 6:32 mark of period three. There, Jacob Schnapp joined the scoring with a wicked wrister over the shoulder of Anthony Shrum to make it a 4-2 game. 

Jesseau, the game's second star, struck again for his 8th in 6 games with Blue Ridge to pull the Bobcats back within a goal at the 13:57 mark of the final frame. But a final man advantage counterpunch from Ford, the game's first star, sealed Twin City's 5-3 triumph.

Shrum stopped 37 of 42 shots in net for Blue Ridge. Boris Babik stopped 40 of 43 in the crease for the Thunderbirds.

Both squads re-rack things for the third of four consecutive meetings and the 9th of 12 total on the season on Friday night. Puck drop for the final game of a 3 game homestand at Hitachi Energy Arena is scheduled for 7:30 pm and tickets are on sale now at blueridgebobcats.com/tickets, 276-335-2100 and the arena box office.