Originally published Monday, October 30, 2006 at 12:00 AM

Disputed call drops T-birds

A penalty-ridden second period was all it took to hand the Seattle Thunderbirds their first defeat in regulation inside KeyArena. Tri-City's Colton Yellow Horn...

By Barry Pump

Special to The Seattle Times

A penalty-ridden second period was all it took to hand the Seattle Thunderbirds their first defeat in regulation inside KeyArena.

Tri-City's Colton Yellow Horn beat a possible high-sticking charge for his eighth goal of the season, and the Americans snapped a three-game losing streak and beat the Thunderbirds 3-2 in front of 2,546 spectators Sunday.

"[The officials] didn't think it was, and I did," Seattle coach Rob Sumner said of the play involving Yellow Horn. "That's being short with it, but that's basically it."

Seattle's bench was penalized following the no-call, and Tri-City left center Alex Aldred used the five-on-four advantage to take a 2-1 lead with 4.2 seconds left in the period.

The Americans improve to 10-5-0-0 with the victory.

It was Tri-City's third triumph over the Thunderbirds (4-4-0-5) this season. The American's first two victories came in shootouts.

"Playing Tri-City, they're big games, divisional games, and we were eyeing them up for second," summed up Chris Durand, who scored the Thunderbirds' first goal with 27 seconds left in the first period.

The defeat knocks third-place Seattle seven points behind No. 2 Tri-City in the U.S. Division of the Western Hockey League.

A victory would have put the Thunderbirds three points out of second.

"To have a four-point game like this, to drop back down to seven points, it's a tough one to take," Durand said.

The Thunderbirds tried to take control in the third period, putting up 12 shots on goal compared to five by the Americans.

But Tri-City's Michael Kaye scored his fourth goal of the year on assists by Yellow Horn and Matt Swaby to put the Americans up 3-1 with 9:27 to play.

Jan Eberle responded for the Thunderbirds 13 seconds later thanks to an assist by Jeremy Schappert to close the score to 3-2, but the renewed offense wasn't enough.

"We were hungry at the end of the game," Sumner said. "I'm happy with the way we played. But we should be able to bring that right from the start to the finish."

The Thunderbirds travel to Portland on Friday for another divisional match with the Winter Hawks.

AMERICANS 3, THUNDERBIRDS 2




Tri-City	0	2	1	—	3


	Seattle		1	0	1	—	2

First — 1, Seattle, Durand 2 (Jackson), 19:33. Second — 2, Tri-City, Yellow Horn 8 (Aldred, Swaby), 18:27 (pp). 3, Tri-City, Aldred 4 (Yellow Horn, Mestery), 19:55 (pp). Third — 4, Tri-City, Kaye 4 (Yellow Horn, Swaby), 10:33. 5, Seattle, Eberle 3 (Schappert), 10:46. Shots on goal — Tri-City 9-9-5 — 23. Seattle 6-7-12 — 25. Power plays — Tri-City 2 of 5; Seattle 0 of 9. Goalies — Tri-City, Pickard 4-2-0-0 (25 shots-23 saves). Seattle, Yeomans 4-3-0-3 (23-20). A — 2,546.

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