NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The South Carolina Stingrays picked up a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Florida Everblades on Saturday night.

Andrew Perrott, Grant Cruikshank and Kyler Kupka scored for the Stingrays, while Seth Eisele made 24 saves in the loss.

The Stingrays started the game aggressively, harassing the Everblades net with eleven shots on goal compared to Florida’s five in the first period. The Stingrays finished the first period on the power play, but couldn’t concede.

The Stingrays got another power play opportunity ten minutes into the second period when Florida’s Colin Theisen was ejected for an interference penalty. Austin Magera won the ensuing faceoff to start the power play, and Alexander Suzdalev fed the puck to Perrott, who scored his second goal of the season.

Cruikshank doubled Stingray’s lead four minutes later. He took a cross-ice pass from Tyler Weiss and beat Florida goalie Will Cranley with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle.

The Everblades got a goal back with less than a minute to go when Colton Hargrove scored off a rebound for his third goal of the season. Hargrove leads the Everblades with seven points this season.

The score remained tied until Kyle Betts tied the game at 14:56 of the third period when he buried a cross from Florida’s Logan Lambdin.

The two teams traded goals in the final two minutes of the match. Kupka redirected a Tyler Weiss shot to give the Rays the lead with his second power-play goal of the season, but the Everblades answered 21 seconds later. With Cranley bringing in an extra attacker, Florida’s Alex Kile scored his first goal of the season to make it a 3-3 hockey game.

Cranley made two saves in overtime before the Everblades closed out a game on a Colin Theisen goal. With the win, Florida improved to 5-1-0-0, while South Carolina dropped to 3-1-1-0 on the season.

The Rays’ Cancer Awareness Weekend continues tomorrow with a Sunday afternoon game against the Atlanta Gladiators at 3:05 p.m. The Stingrays will once again wear special white and purple jerseys.

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