Wildcats claw out victory, force game five on Monday night

Richard Kelly

A regulation hockey game is 60 minutes. The Topeka RoadRunners wish it was 57.

Leading 3-1 with less than three minutes to play, Topeka surrendered two late goals and eventually allowed another in overtime, as they fell to the Wichita Falls Wildcats 4-3 on Saturday night at Kay Yeager Coliseum.

Forward Tanner Fahlstedt brought the Wildcats within one goal at 17:17 before an unassisted goal from forward Ryan Frost tied the game with 27 seconds left in regulation. Tied at 3, the game went to overtime, where Frost ripped a shot past goaltender Eric Rohrkemper at 9:09 to tie the best of five series at two games apiece.

Topeka got on the scoreboard early in the contest with an unassisted shorthanded goal from forward Nate Milam at 3:37. Late in the first period, at 19:11, forward Ryan White scored a powerplay goal, giving the RoadRunners a 2-0 lead.

At 14:52 of the second period, forward Mikhail Sentyurin registered a powerplay goal for the Wildcats to cut the lead in half. But Topeka forward Kyle Sharkey appeared to put away the game at 15:06 of third period with a powerplay goal before the Wildcats scored twice late in regulation.

Eric Rohrkemper notches the loss for Topeka, stopping 26 of 30 shots while Matt Green stopped 25 of 28 shots in the victory. Topeka and Wichita Falls play on Monday night in Topeka to decide the series victor. Faceoff is at 7:05 p.m.