FRASER, Mich. – The MJDP completed the comeback Sunday, scoring four unanswered goals, including three in the third period, to knock off the Decatur Blaze 4-2 Sunday afternoon to earn the weekend split.
Decatur had downed the MJDP 4-2 Saturday night.
Brayden Tayles’ goal at 12:49 of the third period stood as the winner.
“It was tied for a while,” said Tayles (pictured). “(Parker) Wolters chipped it up the boards and I saw (Mitchell) Hoon flying through the middle. I just tried to get it to him and he poked it at the goalie and it took a perfect bounce right to my stick. I just buried it.”
John Taylor added an insurance goal at 17:46 to seal the game.
Mitch Forton scored the other two goals for the MJDP, while Kris Eberly stopped 26 shots between the pipes.
“I thought we played just as well in the first period as we did in the third period,” Jets associate head coach Jamie Lovell said. “We battled through the adversity and the penalties, even myself making a mistake there and getting on the referee, but our guys bailed me out and they killed off those penalties. When you do things like that, I do believe in karma and the hockey gods, when you battle through all that and don’t get caught up in all that, we’ll get something back.
“In the third period, our guys came out hard. We weren’t going to be denied that game.”
Saturday, Taylor and Trevor Naiman scored with Michael Paul and Ethan Ryan combining to make 25 saves.
“Today was not good enough on everyone’s front,” Jets coach-GM Justin Quenneville. “We mishandled plays, mishandled pucks, were weak on pucks, and weren’t strong in our own zone. We made the team in those other jerseys look good tonight. That’s unacceptable.”
The Jets are idle this weekend, while the MJDP plays the Detroit Fighting Irish Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Southgate Civic Arena.
All games this season will be streamed on www.HockeyTV.com with live updates on the USPHL app.
