TOPEKA, Kan. – The Springfield Jr. Blues erased a two-goal deficit by scoring four times in the third period – three by forward Brennan Blaszczak – and went on to a 4-2 NAHL victory Friday night over the Topeka RoadRunners at the Kansas ExpoCentre.The Jr. Blues (4-7) found themselves down 2-0 after 40 minutes of play and couldn’t solve Topeka goaltender Ryan Snowden (40 saves) despite heavily outshooting the 5-8 RoadRunners. But Springfield finally broke through by taking advantage of some shaky Topeka team defense – scoring on three consecutive 2-on-1 breaks within a two-minute span – that turned the game around.Just over five minutes into the third, Springfield cut its deficit in half as Blaszczak scored his 5th goal of the season by beating Snowden with a low wrist shot. Only 77 seconds later, it was Ryan Leibold finishing off another 2-on-1 break, and 39 seconds after that Blaszczak scored what proved to be the game winner with yet another odd-man rush.Blaszczak completed his hat trick at the 12:02 mark of the third with a power-play goal to finish the scoring.The RoadRunners, outshot 15-8 in the opening period, killed off a pair of Springfield power plays in the first period and gained the lead halfway through the period. Max Harper, with an assist from center Christian Sanda, converted on an offensive-zone faceoff and had his hard wrister trickle through Springfield goalie Devin Cooley (24 saves).Topeka made it 2-0 6:53 into the second period when Brendan Doyle scored his first goal of the season, taking advantage of a crease scramble and shoving a rebound past Cooley. Nigel Nelson and Artem Nekrasov assisted.The two teams finish their weekend series with a 7:05 p.m. game Saturday at the ExpoCentre.
