North Division Champs

The Kalamazoo Wings captured their third straight North Division title in convincing 6-1 victory Wednesday night at the Huntington Center against the Toledo Walleye. 

Sparked by two goals 23 seconds apart, the K-Wings jumped ahead to a 2-0 advantage. Fed by a Darryl Bootland pass to the high slot, Elgin Reid (8th) put the K-Wings on the scoreboard 8:23 into the period. 

Moments later, Darren Archibald (12th) walked out the corner and between the circles to fire a wrister through the legs of Alex Richards to lengthen the lead to two goals. 

Putting the game out of reach in the second period, Nick Sirota (21st) extended his goal streak to an ECHL season-long eight games 4:10 by knocking in a Joe Charlebois rebound. 

Later in the period, Prab Rai (2nd) scored on a penalty shot to push the K-Wings to four goals. The penalty shot attempt the K-Wings’ ECHL season-high ninth (2-for-9) this season. 

With 22.6 seconds, Archibald (13th) struck for his second-goal of the game, this time a power-play marker that was setup by Sirota and Eric Kattelus. 

Becoming the second K-Wing to earn a hat trick this season, Archbald (14th) netted his third goal of the night deking around Richard 4:56 into the third period. 

Joey Martin broke up Riley Gill’s shutout bid late in the game with his 20th goal of the season, which tied Martin with Kyle Rogers for the team-lead. 

Gill finished the game with 29 saves. 

Kalamazoo will continue their three-game road swing this Friday, March 30th with a 7:30 p.m. (CDT) encounter at the Sears Centre against the Chicago Express.

Submtted by Mike Modugno