ODESSA, TX – Ryan McLeod recorded a hat trick, but the story was Marco Emond’s 38 saves in the Bloomington PrairieThunder’s 5-3 over the Odessa Jackalopes on Saturday night at the Ector County Coliseum.  With the loss the Jackalopes fall back to sixth place in the Central Hockey League’s Berry Conference, one point back of Mississippi.

Box Score

Emond’s performance was the difference as the Jackalopes were held scoreless on five power play opportunities that were part of a 41-shot night.

McLeod’s hat trick goal game just 15 seconds into the third period, and was the only tally to set up the two-goal win for the Thunder.

McLeod’s score took the momentum gained by the Jackalopes when Todd Robinson scored with 25 seconds left in the second period to close the gap to 4-3.

Bloomington (33-18-6) jumped out to an early lead as Bill Bagron scored a 4-on-3, power play goal 6:03 into the contest.  Sebastien Thinel answered just five seconds after Bagron’s tally with a shorthanded goal for his league-leading 95th point of the season.  McLeod’s first goal of the game came with under five minutes to play to make it 2-1, PrairieThunder.

McLeod struck again 5:20 into the second period to make it a 3-1 hockey game, but Kenny Corupe answered back for Odessa (26-27-6) at the midway point when his wrist shot from the right circle trickled through the legs of Emond.  Jason Delerume then added a shorthanded goal for Bloomington to make it a 4-1 lead before Robinson’s tally.

Thinel (14 games) and Robinson (10 games) each extended their point streaks in the loss.  Mike Ramsay’s 13-game point streak came to a close.  Thinel now finds himself three points away from breaking his own franchise record for points in a single season (97).

Mike Mole took his first loss of the season since signing with the Jacks in early March with 27 saves.