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They waited until the eighth inning but the Winnipeg Goldeyes offence finally got the job done. Unable to manufacture any offence for most of the game, the Goldeyes rallied and scored three times in the eighth on their way a 3-1 victory against the Kansas City T-Bones in Winnipeg on Sunday afternoon. Matt Jackson gave Winnipeg a fantastic start on the mound and kept the Goldeyes in the game all afternoon. Jackson struck out 11 T-Bones in 7 2/3 innings but received a no decision after leaving the game down 1-0. The run against Jackson was unearned. "Coming off an eight inning performance in Sioux City, I wasnt expecting to get another stellar eight innings out of him today," said Goldeyes manager Rick Forney. "He had excellent command on both sides of the plate." It was a big win for the Goldeyes, who needed it to keep pace in the American Association wild card race. They remain 2 ½ games back of the Gary SouthShore RailCats, who beat the Sioux Falls Canaries 2-1 on Sunday. Offence was at a premium at Shaw Park in the series finale. Jackson recorded six strikeouts through the first four innings but Winnipeg was unable to get him any run support. The game remained scoreless through six and the Goldeyes stranded a pair of runners in each the fourth, fifth, and sixth inning. The T-Bones would scratch a run across with two outs in the seventh inning. With Trevor Coleman at first, Anthony Davis hit a soft liner into right field and Coleman attempted to go first to third on the hit. The throw from Fehlandt Lentini appeared to beat him to the bag but the ball skipped away from Goldeyes third baseman Yurendell de Caster and Coleman would score on the error charged to Lentini. In the eighth, Ray Sadler drew a leadoff walk off Kansas City reliever Sean Toler. The next batter, Josh Mazzola, showed bunt early in the at-bat but Toler fell behind 2-0. Manager Rick Forney took the bunt sign off and on 3-1, Mazzola rewarded the decision with a double to the gap in left centre field to score Sadler and tie the game. Casey Haerther would follow that up with a single that scooted underneath the glove of Kansas City third baseman Brandon Jones. That would bring home Mazzola and give the Goldeyes their first lead of the afternoon. An RBI single from Luis Alen extended the lead to 3-1 and the Goldeyes avoided a series sweep with the win. Brendan Lafferty threw one pitch out of the Goldeyes bullpen to earn the win. He finished off the eighth for Jackson, who allowed only five hits in his start. Jacksons 11 strikeouts are the second most by a Winnipeg starter this season. Chris Kissock earned his first save of the season by pitching a 1-2-3 ninth inning. He closed the game in place of the regular closer Patrick Keating, who was unavailable Sunday after pitching two innings the previous night. Toler took the loss for the T-Bones. He gave up two earned runs and did not record an out in the game. The Goldeyes continue to chase down a playoff spot tomorrow when they open up a four game series against the St. Paul Saints in Minnesota. First pitch is set for 7 p.m. and you can catch all the action with Paul Edmonds on TSN 1290. . -- Oakland Athletics third baseman Scott Sizemore has undergone surgery on his left knee to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament. .Y. -- A month ago, Syracuse was unbeaten, ranked No. . They know how difficult it is to beat the San Antonio Spurs. George scored 28 points and Indiana defeated San Antonio 111-100 on Saturday night, snapping an 11-game skid against the Spurs. . -- The Green Bay Packers have signed quarterback Graham Harrell to the active roster from the practice squad and placed tight end Andrew Quarless on injured reserve. .com) - Wayne Simmonds, Scott Laughton and Jakub Voracek each posted a goal and an assist as the Philadelphia Flyers thumped the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-1, on Saturday.With the Penguins being one of the highest scoring teams in the league and the Jets a team that surrenders a lot of goals, perhaps the high scoring affair should have been expected. It had been 10 games since the Penguins had given up the first goal of the game at home and eight games since they had trailed 2-0 at home, but that was the case after one with a couple of Jets rookies doing the damage. Jacob Trouba, with his fourth of the year, opened the scoring 1:47 in with assists from Olli Jokinen and Adam Pardy. Pardy was back in after missing the last four games. Sidney Crosby, the NHLs leading scorer, was awarded a penalty shot and a chance to tie the game, but was stopped by Al Montoya. In the final seconds of the period, Mark Scheifele gave the Jets the 2-0 lead with his seventh goal of the season, all of which have come on the road. Assists on the goal went to Evander Kane and Zach Bogosian. Shots in the first period were 11-11. The Penguins got their offence going early in the second on a goal from Evgeni Malkin, his first game back after missing 10 due to injury. James Neal stole the puck from Dustin Byfuglien to start the play and the Pens were on the board at 1:06 of the second. Neal then went to work and scored two in 34 seconds and by the 4:59 mark of the period, the Penguins had the lead at 3-2. Blake Wheeler, with his team leading 16th, evened the game at 6:02. Bryan Little had the lone assist. All was quiet for the next five minutes other than Montoya and Marc-Andre Fleury being busy making saves. At 11:38, Jussi Jokinen put the Pens back in front, but before the high scoring period could end, Evander Kane scored two goals only 2:11 apart to regain the lead for the Jets. His second of the night, 14th of the year and seventh in the last 11 games came at 19:42. It was 5-4 after two with shots in the second favouring the Jets 13-11. The Penguins started the third with an offensive push, but the Jets weathered the storm for the time being. But another giveaway resulted in Malkins second of the night coming at 8:29. The winner then came at 12:38 off a face-off with a Matt Niskanen shot going off a Jets players stick and in. The Jets had some great chances, but could not beat Fleury. The best opportunity came from close in off the stick of Andrew&nbssp;Ladd, but Fleury made a great save to keep the Pens ahead.dddddddddddd. In the final seconds Scheifele had Fleury down, but his shot from close in went over the net. The final shots were 39-34 for the Penguins. The Jets got 11 shots from their defence with Mark Stuart leading the way with four. Jussi Jokinen led all players with eight shots on goal. Kane led the Jets with six. It was Kanes 15th two-goal game of his career. A pair of Jets rookies are on impressive scoring runs. Mark Scheifele has six goals and 11 assists in his last 21 games, while Jacob Trouba has two goals and three assists in his last six games. Blake Wheeler is now tied for second in team points with Byfuglien with 32. Byfuglien has three goals and seven assists in his last 12 games, but was a minus-three on the day. Leading all NHL defencemen in shots, Byfuglien was held to just a pair by the Pens The Jets were held scoreless in three power play opportunities and have not scored on the man advantage in six in a row after scoring nine power play goals in eight games. Eric ODell played his fifth game of the season, but was limited to just 4:25 of ice time. The win for the Penguins was their 12th straight at home, marking a new franchise record. Coach Claude Noel started his post-game news conference by saying that the Jets made“too many mistakes. You have to defend against this team.” The Jets simply give up too many goals and this is not on the goalies. There were far too many grade-A scoring chances against and it was the Jets 25th one-goal game of the season (The team is 10-10-5 in those games.) “We dont protect the lead, we play with it,” continued Noel. “Were one up going into the third, first five or six minutes we are solid, we want to play on our toes, dont sit back and manage every shift. You have to play the right way. There were a lot of break downs in our end. They gave us five, we gave them six. Our plan was not to win the game 7-6.” The Jets now return home, winless on their three-game road trip, to face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday (available on TSN Jets and TSN 1290,) the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday afternoon and the Phoenix Coyotes on Monday. It will be an interesting start to the week for players, as the remainder of the Olympic teams will be announced. ' ' '
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