It’s all over at state
Sara McLaughlin and Katie Goebel’s prep tennis career’s have come to a successful end. At the IHSA State Tennis Tournament  McLaughlin lost her first match of the day in the 7th round consolation, and Goebel-Kathleen Bracke made it to the consolation quarterfinals before being ousted.
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By Dan Tomlin
It all comes down to these two days. After Friday’s matches, it will all be settled, 12 girls will get their tickets punched to the IHSA State Tennis Tournament. Fortunately for our local girls, of those 12, many could have Q-C ties.
Just when it looked like it was going to get interesting down the stretch.
Cam Cunning put the Quad City Flames within one goal of the Peoria Rivermen with 3:35 left in the game. That made the score 3-2 Peoria.
However, just seconds later, Peoria had a one-on-one at the other end. The goal by Martin Kariya put the Rivermen back on top 4-2. That proved to be the final.
On Cunning’s goal, the assists went to Dan Ryder and Kris Chucko.
The Flames did have one of the game’s 3 stars, defenseman Matt Pelech. Peoria had the game’s top 2 stars: center Julian Talbot as No. 1 and winger Martin Kariya as No. 2.
 The Flames split their home-opening weekend for a 1-1 record. Peoria is now 2-0.
The Flames are back in action on Friday for their first road of their franchise history, playing in Milwaukee against the Admirals. Game time will be 7 p.m. The game, as are all Flames broadcasts, will be on WYEC-FM 93.9, starting at 6:35 p.m.
The Flames’ next game at the i wireless Center will be on Oct. 26 following a four-game road trip. The opposition that night also will be Milwaukee.
The Peoria Rivermen had been on the attack with each power-play chance. They took advantage 5:55 into the third period, scoring with the man advantage to take a 3-1 lead in Sunday’s AHL game against the Quad City Flames.
Because of all of the hoopla of Opening Night on Saturday, my attention to detail was a bit lax. I can’t remember how the Flames organization celebrated goals with the fans.
On the first QC goal on Sunday, though, it appropriately came with The Trampps’ `Disco Inferno’ over the P.A. In fact, I would have liked it if the `Inferno’ was turned up a few notches on the sound system.
I had just finished typing in the headline of this blog as `QC’s Keetley withstands Peoria surge.’ Peoria quickly dashed that by sneaking the puck past Flames goalie Matt Keetley for the first score of Sunday’s game.
Five minutes into Sunday’s AHL game and there is no score, but we do have a dandy of a fight.
At the 5:53 mark of the first period, QC’s Brandon Prust (6-foot, 195) and Peoria’s Hans Benson (6-foot, 210)Â went knuckle to knuckle for 60 seconds — a long time for a hockey fight to last.
This one caught me by surprise — sitting three rows behind the Quad City Flames bench before Sunday’s game against the Peoria Rivermen was a fan wearing a `Nystrom’ jersey. That’s Eric Nystrom, who had a goal and an assist in Saturday’s win over Rockford.
 The thing is, the fan’s Nystrom jersey is No. 19. Eric wears No. 23 for the Quad City Flames. Both jerseys have the Calgary Flames logo on the right sleeve.
With the Quad City Flames about to tangle with the Peoria Rivermen in about an hour, with a 3 p.m. Sunday start, it was entertaining to watch seven Flames players work out in a open area right in front of Section 116 — with a soccer ball!
