With a full moon high in the eastern sky above Cedar Springs, the Men of Phantom Nation returned to the Plex on Sunday afternoon in hopes of advancing their longest winning streak of the season to five games. However, the Full Moon would cast its shadows and disarray amongst the Phantom troops, as the team dropped a 5-2 decision, ultimately truncating and halting the hopes of a continued win-streak which will concede at 4 games. The contest was the first of two regular season meetings against the Donkey Punch this season, a new entry to the Bronze league featuring several former West Michigan Phantom Silver players including Jason Devroy, Ty Coon and Andy Roseart. The Phantoms who began the contest with a very good stride would begin to fall off and into the beginning of a rather dismal performance roughly seven minutes after the opening face-off. At the 7:35 mark of the opening period, the Donkey Punch would deliver their first of many Phantom-bound jabs, as a shot from the point would surprisingly beat the Phantom netminder for a 1-0 Donkey lead. Just over three minutes later, the Donkeys would punch again on another strike to quickly stun the Phantoms with a 2-0 deficit. The first two goals from the Donkey Punch would occur on the teams first four shots, as it appeared the Phantom netminder was still suffering from the Full Moon effect of the previous nights Muskegon Lumberjack dismal play at the Walker Arena. Despite trailing 2-0 after the opening 16 minutes, the Phantoms managed to out shoot the Donkey Punch 9-6 in the opening stanza. In the second period, the Donkeys would continue their crawl up the scoreboard as a bad play inside the Phantom zone would allow them to seize a 3-0 lead. The Phantoms would again out shoot the Donkey Punch in the middle stanza 12-7; however, the offensive flare of the Phantom team who had recorded 20 goals in the previous four tilts appeared to be rather mute. The Donkey Punch would continue their assault against the Phantom crew with a pair of goals 2:41 apart to reach the five-spot against the Yellow Shirts. Despite the goose-egg on the board for the Phantoms late in the period, the team will still have some fight to register a pair of tallies on their side of the board. With 4:07 left in the period, the Phantom combination of Jason Schemmel and Tim Czycyk would charge up the rink on a rare 2-0 breakaway. The pair of Rivertown BlueVortex stars would complete a rather perfect Tic-Tac-Toe play and Czycyk would rocket a roof-top rocket over Dave Sny in the Donkey Punch goal to put the Phantoms on the board 5-1. Minutes later, the Phantoms Chad Manning would capture the puck deep in front of the goal and slip the biscuit across the goal line to bring the Phantoms with-in three. However, the Phantoms would wait too long into the contest to begin their flight and surrender too many chances against a highly skilled Donkey Punch team to be a factor in this first of two meetings this season. In the end, the Donkey Punch would earn their 5-2 victory, as the Phantoms fall to 5-3 on the season. The Phantoms Keith Mooreman would leave the game early in the third period after an unintentional high-stick from the Donkey Punch goaltender tore a gash near the chin of the Muskegon resident. Keith would remain at Cedar Rock until the conclusion of the contest, where he would then begin his 35 minute drive to Muskegon s Mercy Hospital to get stitched up. The Phantoms were pleased to restore the services of longtime franchise member Trent Kik. Trent was sent down to the Phantoms Bronze club from the idle Silver team, after Brad Zehr was unable to attend the contest due to a very heavy night of drinking. Despite not registering a point, Trent was gallant in his recall to the bronze club. The Phantoms and Donkey Punch would each tally a two minute minor penalty during the contest on the Nautys Penalty Minute Board. The Phantoms will return to the action on Sunday during the teams Valentines Day Celebration game against the Junkyard Dawgs. Game time will be 6:00pm.
