Salt Lake’s Sharples Contributes to Gulls’ Woes

It’s been so long since they’ve had a break, if the Gulls got one, they’d probably trip on it.

In Sunday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, it would be unfair to say they squandered away two perfect chances--one by Darren Lowe another by Soren True--in overtime.

Bad penalties and passes aside for the Gulls, it wasn’t so much their breakdowns as the heads-up play of Golden Eagle goalie Warren Sharples that contributed to the Gulls’ fourth consecutive loss in front of 4,117 at the Sports Arena. And they’ve lost 11 of the last 13 at home.

Sharples improved to 4-1-0 against the Gulls and stopped 29 of 31 shots Sunday.

“Sharples played well,” said Gull goaltender Scott Brower, in his first shootout of the season. “But three goals, it should have been closer for us.”

Leading the shootout 2-1, Salt Lake’s Andrew McKim fired the winning shot past Brower, who is 0-5-1 against the Golden Eagles (40-24-5).

Bringing a 35.5 scoring average--over five years--into the season, Lowe has struggled this year. He has 19 goals this season and had three prime-time chances stripped away Sunday.

“That’s just the way it’s been going for us this year,” he said. “There have been a few guys having rough years, and I’m one of them.”

Now one was rougher on the Gulls’ in this two-game series than McTrouble: McKim and Scott McCrady, and C.J. Young. They combined to score or assist on all six goals, not including McKim’s shootout heroics.

After Young scored his second goal of the night to give Salt Lake a 3-2 lead at 3:37 in the third, Darin Banister scored the goal that sent the game into overtime.