The Peoria Rivermen put themselves in a bad position Thursday, and now the SPHL's No. 1 playoff seed has its back to the wall.
The Rivermen gave up four unanswered goals to start the game, rallied to get two back, and fell short, 4-2, to No. 7 Knoxville in Game 3 of the SPHL Semifinals before 3,863 at Knoxville Civic Coliseum.
Knoxville leads the best-of-5 series, 2-1, and can eliminate the Rivermen on Friday in Game 4 in Tennessee.
No. 4 seed Evansville eliminated No. 3 Roanoke on Thursday night in the other semifinal, and awaits the winner of the Peoria-Knoxville series in the President's Cup Finals.
The Rivermen put SPHL Goaltender of the Year Jack Bostedt in the net for his first postseason appearance. They got goals from gritty little checking line center Matt Wiesner and captain Alec Baer 23 seconds apart in the final two minutes of the second period.
They got a terrific effort game from big veteran center JM Piotrowski. That was about it. Much of the game saw Knoxville's forwards push a high-motor pace that Peoria struggled to match, forcing defensive zone turnovers and mistakes from being hurried.
"The first eight minutes of a period Knoxville dominates, we've been doing that whole series," Rivermen head coach Jean-Guy Trudel said. "Then we take over the last 12 minutes. We probably had 25 grade-A scoring chances and couldn't finish them. Our best guys are just nowhere. Your best players have to be your best players.
"At the end of the day, they have to decide if they want to do the work and earn it."
The Rivermen sat down veteran goaltender Nick Latinovich for Game 3 because he was recovering from multiple injuries.
"He's been pretty banged up for a while," Trudel said. "So we looked at Jack (Bostedt) and he won the SPHL Goaltender of the Year award earlier in the day, and we decided to put him in there and see if it gave us some momentum."
But Knoxville scored 13 seconds after the opening faceoff, ran up a 4-0 lead in the first 33 minutes of the game, and got a hat trick from Tim Kent that included two regrettable goals on the short side.
"You have a team over there in Knoxville that is super energized, really hungry," Trudel said. "Our D-men just can't make a play against them. They go the extra miles, fly around, force play on the walls … We're just slow, slow to react, look like we panic."
Knoxville defenseman Kyle Soper's pass from the left circle into traffic on the doorstep was tapped in between Bostedt's pads by Kent from the right side of the crease 13 seconds after the puck dropped.
The Ice Bears opened a 2-0 lead at 8:43 of the first period from captain Jimmy Soper, who buried a doorstep rebound of Brendan Dowler's shot from the top of the right circle.
The Rivermen looked unable to deal with Knoxville's fast-paced game in the first period and beyond, allowing numerous odd-man breaks.
They tried to regroup in the second period but gave up another pair of goals to Kent as he completed a hat trick in a span of 3:39.
Kent powered down along the right boards through winger/defenseman Braydon Barker and headed to the right post, where he planted a shot short side into the top right corner of the net at 10:42 for 3-0.
Then Kent put the Rivermen in a 4-0 hole when he beat Bostedt short side again 12:57.
More: Record-setting Peoria Rivermen goaltender is named SPHL Goaltender of the Year
The Rivermen got on the board when Wiesner took a cross-zone feed from Garrett Devine at the right post and put it past 6-foot-8, 250-pound Knoxville goaltender Stephen Mundinger at 18:21 of the second.