DECATUR, Ill. – The MJDP lost the opener of its weekend series against the Decatur Blaze, 4-2 Friday night at the Decatur Civic Center.

Garrick Smith and Logan Davis scored and Kris Eberly finished with 33 saves in goal.

“That was an extremely disappointing performance,” said Jets coach-GM Justin Quenneville. “Our guys didn’t treat this game as an opportunity. We just wanted to win, but not enough to go through a wall for each other. In the end, Decatur got a couple lucky bounces and several soft calls their way, and there is nothing we can do about that. We have to learn to beat the opponent and the ref at that point. 

“You can tell our guys’ frustration mounting from missing chances and especially after that second-period goal the ref overturned on ‘Z’ (Brennan Zatelli). I don’t care that we outshot and outchanced them, we just need to come in tomorrow and play hard and smart for 60 full minutes.”

Mitchell Hoon added two assists for the MJDP.

The two teams play again Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

All games will be streamed on www.HockeyTV.com with live updates available on the USPHL app.