Ryan Cruthers gave the Orlando Solar Bears the winning goal during overtime, leading the team to a close victory over the South Carolina Stingrays 4-3 on Friday, Feb. 15 at the Amway Center.

“I don’t think we changed much. We were happy the way we were playing 5v5, we were taking penalties that were costing us and then we stuck to our game plan throw everything at the net get traffic there and that’s what happen on all our goals threw pucks at the net guys around the net and we were able to capitalize” , said Ryan Cruthers.

Solar Bears gave up two goals in the first period to be down 2-0 and put themselves in a hole.

Head Coach Drake Berehowsky said, “ I thought the start was great the first ten minutes was great until we started taking penalties. We were outshooting them, getting pucks on deep, and then we started to do undiscipline things. You know we have to learn from our mistakes, I keep repeating myself to you guys and the guys inside that room have to understand that penalties, we can kill good ones, but it eventually come back and bite you. We have to stay discipline.”

South Carolina took the lead, when forward Andrew Cherniwchan scored his seventh goal of the season unassisted as he to made it 1-0 with 13:45 left in the first.

Stingrays extend their lead to 2-0 late in the first, when forward Alex MacLeod scored his first goal of the season with 3.5 seconds left in the first period. Assists on the goal came from Hunter Bishop and Tommy Cross.

MacLeod added to his tally as he scored his second goal of the season for South Carolina to make it 3-0 over Orlando in the third period with 16:29 remaining in the period. Assist on the goal came from Cameron Brodie.

Down 3-0 Orlando cut into the deficit in the third period, when CJ Severyn scored his sixteenth goal of the season to make it 3-1 South Carolina with 7:52 to play in the game. Assists on the goal came from Mathew Sisca and Michael Wilson.

“Yeah we definitely have to keep our momentum going isn’t not hard like I said before when all the guys are clicking and can spot teams leads like we do night in night out” said CJ Severyn.

Severyn scored again in the third period with assists from Sisca and Wilson to make it 3-2 South Carolina with 4:21 left to play. It was Severyn’s seventeenth goal of the season to tie Cruthers for leading goal scorer for the Solar Bears at 17 goals apiece.

Very late in the game Michael Neal scored a goal for Orlando to tie the game at 3-3 with 23 seconds left to send the game to overtime. Neal scored his ninth goal of the season in dramatic fashion, with the assists coming from Ryan Ginand and Jesse Dudas.

Cruthers unassisted scored the fourth goal of the night for the Solar Bears at 3:42 during the overtime period.

Ryan Cruthers scored the winning goal, which was his 17 goal of the season to give the Solar Bears the victory.