Minot, ND – The Minotauros picked up their first weekend sweep of the season with a strong performance against the NAHL Central leading Austin Bruins. The pair of victories increased the Tauros’ dominance of the head-to-head matchup when in Minot; the Tauros are now 17-3-3 all time against the Bruins since the opening of the Pepsi Rink at Maysa Arena.
On Friday night the Tauros pulled off one of their most memorable comebacks in recent memory. The Bruins jumped out to a 2-0 lead. The Bruins first of the night came just 4:01 in when Marian Haborak picked up his fourth of the season jumping into the play from the blue line. Damon Furuseth doubled the lead on a long flip shot through traffic 13:50 in. The Tauros came storming back to tie the game before the end of the period however with Ike Keller and Zack Simon scoring to pull the Tauros even. Keller’s first of the season came on a shot from a sharp angle to beat Nikola Goich short-side. Simon’s came shorthanded off of a nice feed from Trevor Stachowiak that sent Simon in alone for a breakaway that he converted in the period’s final minute to send the teams into the locker rooms even.
The second period belonged to the Bruins scoring the period’s only goals and outshooting the Tauros 16-10. Early in the third, Huston Karpman pulled the Tauros back within one getting on the end of a pass from David Nesburg to tap the puck into an open side. The one goal deficit held until late in the game, with just under four minutes left Gavin Morrissey took advantage of a Tauro falling down to take the puck and score on a breakaway to make it 5-3. The with 2:04 laft to play Nikolai Charchenko, playing his 108th game as a Tauro scored his first career Tauro goal to narrow the margin once again. Less than a minute later Karpman found Simon with a cross-ice feed and Simon buried it to tie the game. A five minute overtime solved nothing sending the contest to a shootout which saw Zack Sandy stop two of three Austin shooters while Dean Schwenninger and Karpman scored to get the Tauros the win.
Saturday night, just as the night before, Stachowiak found Simon late in the first period, this time the goal opened the scoring in the contest and came at even strength. The Bruins again dominated the second period firing 21 shots at Sandy but he turned each try away. Schwenninger put the Tauros ahead 2-0 by the midpoint of the third when he scored on the rush finishing a two-on-one stated by Simon. Schwenninger would get his second of the night into an empty net from the Tauros zone to make it 3-0 with just over two minutes left to play. Jens Richards broke Sandy’s shutout bid with just 1:11 left to play but the Tauros held on to win 3-1 for the sweep.
The weekend sweep helped the Tauros jump ahead of the St. Cloud Norsemen into fourth place in the Central. Next up the Tauros head to St. Cloud for a weekend set. St. Cloud enters the weekend off of a weekend split with the Bismarck Bobcats. After a weekend in St. Cloud the Tauros will return to the Maysa Arena to host the Aberdeen Wings on Thursday, November 4th; tickets are available through the “Tickets” tab atop this page or by clicking here.