THUNDER BAY -- The Thunder Bay Chill are now a point away from a playoff berth.
But they got there the hard way.
The St. Louis Lions torched the Chill for three first-half goals on Tuesday night at Fort William Stadium, forcing the home side to dig deep in the second half to escape with a much-needed 3-3 tie.
Sullivan Silva, John Stojcevski and Ross Lindsay keyed the comeback over a 20-minute stretch, each scoring possible season-saving goals for a Chill team that had a dozen shots in the opening 45 minutes, but couldn’t bury the ball.
The Lions, on the other hand, could do no wrong.
Jeffrey Palomaroz scored in the opening minute, Joe Lamont in the 20th and Cody Blentlinger in the 31st to stake the Lions to a 3-0 lead – which could have grown by one in the dying seconds of the half, Carson Pryor blasting one off the crossbar that would have beaten Chill goalie Daniel Milton had it been a foot or so lower.
“It’s hard to explain,” Silva said of a rough start plagued by untimely giveaways and breakdowns in the defensive end.
“We struggle at home and when we concede those early goals it’s hard. But we found a way to manage the game in the second half. Of course we wanted the win, but that wasn’t possible. At least we got a tie and got one point.”
He’s not exactly sure where it all went wrong.
“Defensively, I don’t think that we were there today. It’s not only the defenders, it’s the whole team,” Silva said.
Chill coach Gio Petraglia said the one thing he didn’t do was get angry at the half.
“I said let’s forget what happened in the first half. If we needed to talk about what went wrong in the first half, we’d need a week,” he said.
“Let’s just refocus and go out there and play the game. We changed up a few things technically and tactically, but mentally too. I asked my guys to just go out there and play with no (urgency), not thinking about playoffs, not thinking about the score or anything.”
It wasn’t for the lack of chances for the Chill in the first half. They had about a dozen realistic opportunities to put the ball in the net, but Lions goalie Iain McTurk turned each and every one aside.
It was Silva, with his team-leading ninth of the season, who finally put the Chill on the board, winning the battle deep in the Lions zone in the 56th minute.
Nine minutes later Stojcevski closed the gap to 3-2, heading home a Lindsay corner and the crowd came alive.
Lindsay completed the comeback in the 76th, pounding home a free kick from 20 yards out.
“We kind of got a kick in the backside. Luckily we bounced back and will come into the game tomorrow ready to go,” Lindsay said.
Thunder Bay (7-2-4) needs a win or a tie against the Mantis on Wednesday to vault past Chicago (8-4-2) for the final Heartland Division berth. A loss will end their season. The fifth-place Lions record is now 2-7-3.
