By: Brent Maranto

For the second weekend in a row the Flyers took on the Long Beach Bombers in a home and home series.

The weekend prior each of the road teams were victorious, as Long Beach upended the Flyers 3- 1 in Valencia on Friday and the Flyers shutout the Bombers 3-0 in Lakewood on the next night.

This weekend however, a completely different Flyers squad took it to Long Beach and picked up four huge points to keep pace with fourth place San Diego in the Western Division playoff race.

Andrew Lux got the start in net Friday night, after stopping all 24 shots he faced the previous Saturday against the Bombers. On the other end of things Nigel Hinson once again got the start for Long Beach, after taking the win a week prior in Valencia.

In the early going Lux and the Flyers had the upper hand, as Coach Muckalt had his team ready for the opening period.

The Flyers pressured Long Beach the entire period, as the Bombers seemed content with just getting the puck out of their zone for most of the opening stanza.

Coach Muckalt’s ability to roll four lines over showed early on, as Long Beach’s top line, which usually gives the Flyers fits, was unable to muster much offense.

The Flyers however went off for eight shots in the opening two minutes of the game and at the 17:29 mark of the first period, John Dove found pay-dirt.

David Tagvoryan corralled the puck in the corner and fed it up top to defenseman Alex Descheneaux. Descheneaux wasted no time in firing the puck on net and Dove was able to bang home the rebound for his 16th goal of the season.

The Flyers kept the pressure up throughout the period but Hinson was able to make a few big saves to keep the game close early on.

With 3:19 left before the intermission Thomas “Pickles” Meinhardt was the beneficiary of a Bombers’ turnover deep in their own zone and buried his first goal in five games a wrist shot from the slot. Harout Keshishian garnered the primary assist on the Austrian’s 12th goal of the season.

Leading 2-0 the Flyers pressure did not relent but a minor gaff in their own end led to a big Bombers goal with just ten seconds left in the period.

Long Beach’s leading scorer Johnny Linehan had a target on his back all game and Alex Descheneaux took him hard into the glass just inside the Flyers blue line. With too many eyes on Linehan the puck rolled to the slot where defenseman Curtis Fisher was waiting to bury his 5th goal of the year.

The Long Beach goal put a dagger in what had been a fantastic opening period for the Flyers, as the Bombers were able to capitalize on their lone scoring chance of the first period.

The Flyers did just about everything right in the first period, leading in shots 16-10, scoring chances 10-1, hits 19-9 and of course leading 2-1 where it counts. Valencia’s penalty kill held Long Beach’s lethal power-play to only one shot on two chances with the man advantage. The late goal however, turned the momentum in the Bombers favor heading into the second.

Long Beach picked up where they left off in the second and scored on only its second shot of the period, as Nolan Hopkins tallied his team-leading 20th of the year on the power-play.

The Bombers third power-play of the game had been stymied by the Flyers penalty kill for the first minute and a half of the man advantage. With his linemates changing Hopkins skated the puck over the Valencia line one-on-two and fired a lazy wrist shot from about 20 feet out, which surprised Andrew Lux and beat the 16 year-old to knot the game at two. Tim Linehan got the primary assist for his second of the game and Nathan Bloomfield notched the secondary.

Lux was pulled immediately after the goal in favor of Steven Estep, as Coach Muckalt looked to take back the momentum his team had lost.

Estep entered the game with 17:42 left in the middle period and faced only two shots before the second intermission, stopping both.

Just as things were starting to get scary, John Dove stripped a Bombers’ defenseman and skated in all alone and beat Hinson over the shoulder for his second of the game and team-leading 17th of the season. The unassisted goal came on the power-play and once again gave the Flyers some much needed momentum.

In the second period the Flyers again out-shot, out-hit and out-chances Long Beach heavily but only led by a score of 3-2 after 40 minutes of play.

Things evened up in the third as Long Beach finally out-shot the Flyers 16-8 and scoring chances evened up at seven but the Flyers still carried play most of the period.

Things got chippy late in the third as Alex Salmas took a run at Smbat Defterderian and hit the Flyers forward face first into the glass, prompting Jake Ryan and Todd Graham to hand out beatings to both Salmas and Nathan Bloomfield who joined the fray late.

Salmas got a double game misconduct for his actions and after two minutes of four-on-four skating the Flyers were set to have a three minute major power-play, until it was cut short by a Cam Noland tripping penalty.

The Bombers were still unable to do much until Stephen Stoll got caught reaching and was sent off for tripping with just 1:01 left in regulation.

With the goaltender pulled for an extra attacker Brian Scepko blasted a shot from the point off a clean faceoff win that found its way through traffic to tie the game up at three with 54 seconds left in the third. Johnny Linehan tallied his second assist of the game, while Jake McPeck also notched the secondary assist.

The two teams could once again not decide anything in regulation and headed to overtime for the third time this season.

The Flyers out-shot Long Beach four to three in overtime but still nothing was solved. For the game the Flyers out-shot Long Beach 43-33, out-chanced the visitors 25-7 and led in hits by a huge margin of 62-30 for the game, but yet the game would have to be decided by a shootout.

John Dove led things off for the Flyers by snapping a wrist shot over Hinson's glove, after Steven Estep stoned Long Beach’s first shooter Mike Walker to give the home team a 1-0 lead after one round.

Estep stopped Long Beach’s leading goal-scorer Nolan Hopkins to begin the second round but Cam Noland could not find twine as the lead remained 1-0 after two rounds.

The shifty David Tagvoryan mesmerized the crowd and Hinson with a lethal back-hand move to make it 2-0 and again after Estep made another stop on Tim Linehan to make it 2-0.

In the fourth round Elvis Suquette kept the Bombers alive by beating Estep five-hole and Harout Keshishian could not corral his toe-drag in time to beat Hinson, and Long Beach trailed 2-1.

The ever-prevalent Johnny Linehan snapped a shot past Estep to tie it up in the fifth round and Thomas Meinhardt was stopped by Hinson as five rounds were not enough to find a winner.

Bryan Fiol and the Bombers’ hero in regulation Brian Scepko were both stopped in the sixth round and Stephen Stoll and Andy Kocoglu drew blank in the seventh.

Finally in the eighth round Jack Boyamyan was stopped by Estep and big Todd Graham’s wrister just snuck by Hinson to give the Flyers an exhilarating 4-3 win.

The two points were even bigger as San Diego beat up on Bakersfield in Escondido, so the Flyers were able to remain five points back of the Gulls.

Steven Estep took the win in relief, stopping 20 of 21 shots to move his record to 12-12-2.

Nigel Hinson played the whole game for Long Beach and took the overtime loss, stopping 40 of 43 shots, as his record dropped to 2-7-2.

The next night the Flyers invaded Glacial Gardens Lakewood to finish up their season series against the Bombers.

Each team started their number one netminder, as Steven Estep took the crease for the Flyers and JP Fecteau manned the pipes for the Bombers. Neither however finished the game.

The Flyers came out blazing once more and again got on the board within the first three minutes of the game.

Thomas Meinhardt scored for the second night in a row, as the first-year center tallied his 13th of the year at 17:44 of the opening period. Stephen Stoll and Todd Graham each notched assists on the first goal of many Saturday night.

Just over three minutes later John Dove continued his steak and scored his 19th goal of the season off a feed from linemate David Tagvoryan.

Valencia kept the pressure coming as Stephen Stoll also remained hot, scoring his 10th of the season at the 3:31 mark of the first period. Meinhardt and rookie defenseman Jake Ryan garnered the assists on the Flyers third goal of the period.

Proving they were not going to let up this night, Dove scored his second of the period and 20th of the season with three ticks left before the intermission to make it 4-0 after one. Todd Graham tallied another assist on the goal and goaltender Steven Estep tallied the secondary, foreshadowing what kind of night it would be for Valencia.

The Flyers did not let up in the second either, as Alex Stephens banged home a rebound with 15:27 left in the period to make it 5-0. Tyler McGreevy and Kyle Schwartz were credited with the assists on Stephens’ seventh of the season. After the goal, Taylor Nelson relieved Steven Estep in net, as the route was on.

Less than two minutes later Jake Ryan blistered a slap-shot from the top of the circle past Fecteau to make it 6-0 not even half-way through the game. David Tagvoryan notched his second assist of the contest on the play.

No more scoring would take place in the second as the Flyers let up a little bit, but remained handily in control all night.

Tyler McGreevy scored short-handed at 11:16 of the third period produced by Stephen Stoll and Cam Noland to make it 7-0.

Less than two minutes later Bryan Fiol found the score sheet for his 16th goal of the season, with an assist going to Tagvoryan, his third of the game.

Kyle Schwartz got into the fray by one-timing home a centering feed from David Knowles with 4:09 left in regulation to make it 9-0 and end the night for Bombers’ goaltender JP Fecteau, who was replaced by James Bangar.

Tempers flared as the final buzzer sounded, as Harout Keshishian stepped in to protect younger brother Edy, in a little scrap with Taylor Marshall, earning himself a game misconduct in the process but proving this team does not hesitate to stand up for one another.

Taylor Nelson stopped all 13 shots he faced but Steven Estep got his second consecutive win, putting his personal record over the .500 mark at 13-12-2.

Fecteau took the loss, and had little help, as the French-Canadian net minder stopped 42 of 51 and saw his record drop to 8-13-3.

The win, the Flyers tenth in their last 11 games, combined with two more San Diego wins over Bakersfield puts the Flyers seven points back of the Gulls with ten games left in the season.

The Flyers return home this Friday night, January 29 against the Bakersfield Jr. Condors, who dominated the Flyers 8-0 in their last trip to Valencia.

After Friday, the Flyers play their final three road games of the season in Idaho, February 5-7, before returning home for the final six games of the season.

Be sure to check out all the home games online here at valenciaflyers.net, if you can’t make it out to Ice Station Valencia to experience WSHL action.