#Pirates Season Comes To An End in Manchester

Trevor Lewis scored a pair of goals to lead the Manchester Monarchs to a 7-2 win over the Portland Pirates in Game 4 of their best-of-seven Atlantic Division Semifinal Series played tonight in front of 2,136 at the Verizon Wireless Arena.
The Monarchs won the series 4-0 and will meet the winner of the series between Worcester and Lowell. The Sharks lead that best-of-seven series 3-1.

Bud Holloway, who scored the game winner in all four games of the series, Kevin Westgarth, Oscar Moller, Andrew Campbell and Joe Piskula also scored for the Monarchs while Andrei Loktionov collected three assists.

Nathan Gerbe and Mark Mancari scored for the Pirates.

The Pirates indicated they weren’t going to go quietly as they sent a franchise playoff record 22 shots in the direction of Jonathan Bernier in the opening period. However, despite the extreme pressure, the two teams played through a scoreless opening period. The Monarchs got off to a quick start in the second as Lewis scored just 31 seconds into the period. Lewis would strike again on the power play to make it 2-0 Monarchs, the first of three goals (Holloway and Westgarth also scored) in 3:29 to give the Manchester a 4-0 advantage. Gerbe helped the Pirates cut into the Manchester lead, scoring on a two-man power play in the final two minutes of the period to complete the period scoring and send the Monarchs into the second intermission with a 4-1 lead. Mancari got the Pirates back to within two with just under eight minutes in regulation but Moller answered to start a three-goal explosion in a span of 2:01 to finally put the game out of reach.

The Pirates out shot the Monarchs 46-29 in the game. Todd Ford started and took the loss allowing three goals on 20 shots. He was replaced by J.P. Lamoureux after the Monarchs went up 3-0 just under 13 minutes into the second. Lamoureux allowed four goals (including an empty netter) the rest of the way.

The Allied Home Mortgage Three Stars of the Game were all from the Monarchs. Bernier, with 44 saves, was the first, Lewis the second and Moller the third.

--PIRATES COMMUNICATIONS--