It was a night to celebrate for the Rapid City Rush (35-20-6) who defeated the Turner Conference leading Evansville IceMen (38-19-4) in the first of back-to-back games by a score of 6-3.  Despite losing, the IceMen clinch the first playoff berth in the Turner Conference thanks to the Quad City Mallards loss to Wichita. 

The Rush used a balanced attack with six different goal scorers and a strong night in net from Tim Boron who stopped 31 of 34 shots. 

The win was the 300th in the CHL career of Rapid City head coach Joe Ferras who becomes the sixth coach to reach the 300-win plateau.

Rapid City has now won five of their last six games and has pulled to within four points of the first place IceMen and three points away from the second place Fort Wayne Komets.

For Evansville, they fall for the first time in their last three games but maintain a one point lead in the Turner over the Komets.

The IceMen scored the only goal of the first period thanks to an awarded penalty shot to John Ronan who beat Tim Boron giving Evansville a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.

The second period belonged completely to the home team Rush who dazzled the 4,336 fans in attendance with four straight goals.  Jordan Behler, Jesse Schultz, Anthony Perdicaro and Les Reaney scored for Rapid City taking a 4-1 lead.

Evansville would cut the lead in half with a goal from Luke Stauffacher, the first of two on the night for one of the newest IceMen forwards who was signed prior to last weekend.

Before the third period was half over, Shawn Limpright and Scott Wray added to the Rush lead making the score 6-2 before Stauffacher’s second of the night.

Boron improves to 21-10-2 thanks to his third straight winning decision.

Pier Pelletier took the loss for the IceMen stopping 22 of 28 shots.  He falls to 13-13-2 with four straight losing decisions.

The two teams who could very well meet in the opening round of the playoffs have a rematch on Saturday night in Rapid City.