Thunder blanked in Mississippi

{SOUTHAVEN, Miss.} — The Wichita Thunder lost 5-0 to the Mississippi RiverKings at the DeSoto Civic Center on Saturday night.

RiverKings' winger Matt Summers scored a natural hat trick, while goaltender Alexander Pechurskiy worked a 27-save shutout.  It was the first time this season the Thunder has been shutout.

Leading 1-0, Summers scored a pair of second period goals separated by 1:50 that helped Mississippi carve out a 3-0 lead.  Summers knocked in a backdoor pass from Lutz at 12:33 to convert a RiverKings' power play.  At 14:13, Summers roofed a shot to the long side of the net that cleared over the left shoulder of Peter Delmas.

Summers finished the hat trick in the third period, scoring from the slot at 12:26.  R.G. Flath made it 5-0 RiverKings with a high snapshot at 16:35.

Wichita had several quality scoring chances in the first two periods, outshooting Mississippi in both, but were continually denied by Pechurskiy.

Patrik Levesque scored the first goal of the night at 1:33 in the first period.  Levesque raced down the left side of the slot and tapped in a backdoor pass from the right corner from Nathan Lutz.

Delmas took the loss, saving 18 of 23.  Wichita was 0 for 7 on the power play while Mississippi was 1 for 4.  Robin Richards had two fighting majors.  Jesse Bennefield also had a fighting major for Wichita.

The Thunder hosts the Fort Wayne Komets on December 10th at 7:05 p.m.