The San Antonio Rampage played for the final time in California late Friday night. With injuries still plaguing the Silver and Black, they would put up a good fight. It would not be enough against the division’s top team.
The Rampage took an early lead, but would eventually fall 5-3 to the Ontario Reign in front of 9,491 fans inside Citizens Business Bank Arena on Friday night for their season-high eighth straight loss.
San Antonio got the scoring started early before fans got settled into their seats. Sam Henley lit the lamp just over a minute into the game to give the Silver and Black the early one-goal lead. Borna Rendulic added a tally for his 12th goal of the season to make it a 2-0 lead for San Antonio after 20 minutes.
Ontario knotted the score at two in the middle frame. The Reign took advantage of a power play goal just over eight minutes into the second period when Justin Auger beat Roman Will to make it a one-goal game. Brett Sutter added a marker just before the frame ended to make it two goals apiece going into the final period.
The third period was all Reign as they scored three goals in 3:06 to seal the win. Jonny Brodzinski scored the second power play tally of the night to give Ontario the lead for good at 3:53. Sutter put home his second of the night and Sean Backman capped off the run to make it 5-2. Reid Petryk stopped the bleeding for the Rampage with his 14th goal of the season, but San Antonio fell 5-3.
San Antonio finished the game 0-for-3 on the power play, while Ontario was 2-for-4. The Reign outshot the Silver and Black 33-23 for the game, including 18-8 in the second period.
Roman Will 27 of 32 shots in the loss and Spencer Martin made one save in a relief effort. Peter Budaj stopped 20-of-23 San Antonio shots in the win.
The Rampage are now 24-33-8-0 (56 points, 0.431%) on the season and will return to the ice on Sunday when they welcome the Grand Rapids Griffins to the AT&T Center at 4 p.m.
