Wild sweep Monsters in Fresno

FRESNO, Calif. - 'Tis the season for a 2-game road sweep.

The Wenatchee Wild swept aside the Fresno Monsters Saturday at the Selland Arena in a 4-1 victory, one night after winning the first game of the series in a shootout, to improve their record to 21-3-2 heading into a 12-day holiday break.

Unlike Friday, the Wild came out of the gate on fire Saturday to the tune of a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes of play.

Nathan Flynn (Hastings, Minn.) put Wenatchee's first goal on the scoreboard 3:07 into the opening frame when knocked in Trace Redmond's (McKinney, Texas) centering feed from behind the cage. Evan Schmidbauer (Surrey, British Columbia) also assisted.

Blake Roubos (Niagara Falls, Ontario) upped Wenatchee's lead to 2-0 two minutes after Flynn's opening goal when he flipped a backhander into the twine. Nicholas Kuchera (Eagan, Minn.) and Brian Williams (San Diego, Calif.) picked up the assists. Chris Kerr (Penticton, British Columbia) went on to make it a 3-0 game with 2:32 left in the first period when he scored from the slot on a shot that was aided by a deflection. David Powlowski (Rochester, N.Y.) and Noah Nelson (Oconomowoc, Wis.) assisted.

Mark Bittner got Fresno on the scoreboard with 2:01 left in the first period to cut Wenatchee's lead back to 3-1 when he scored on a turnaround shot from the far point. Matt Salituro was credited with the only assist.

The Wild maintained a high offensive tempo all game and reclaimed their 3-goal lead 8:59 into the second period when Roubos banged in his second goal of the game on a rebound. Kuchera and Williams, who assisted on Roubos' first-period goal, also assisted on his second marker of the game. Roubos now has two 2-goal games this season with the first coming in a 5-4 overtime loss to Fairbanks on Oct. 7.

Robert Nichols (Dallas, Texas) stopped 15 of Fresno's 16 shots to improve his season record to 17-3-2. Macauley Haight was faced with 45 Wenatchee shots, 41 of which he was able to deny. Neither team scored a power-play goal. Wenatchee went 0-for-2 on its man-advantages while Fresno went 0-for-3.

The Wild Kenai River Brown Bears on Dec. 28-31 and Dec. 31. two