Solar Bears open lengthy road trip with three straight wins

The Orlando Solar Bears opened a season-long seven-game road trip with three wins last week, improving to 15-14-5 on the season and giving the South Division the distinction of being the only division in the league that has all of its teams above the .500 mark. Orlando opened its trip with a 4-2 win at Norfolk on Wednesday. Four different Solar Bears’ players tallied goals in the win with Rylan Schwartz (1g-1a) and Eric Faille (2a) posting multi-point efforts. Rob Madore turned aside 39 of 41 Admirals’ shots he faced to record the win in goal. On Friday, both Max Nicastro and Johnny McInnis had two goals and an assist to lead the Solar Bears to a 5-2 victory at Wheeling. Trailing 2-0 after one period, Orlando reeled off the final five goals of the game to take the two points. The Solar Bears ended the first week of their road trip with a 6-3 win at Wheeling on Saturday. Faille led the way with four points (1g-3a) while Denver Manderson (1g-1a), Brady Vail (1g-1a), Zach Bell (2a) and Nicastro (2a) all chipped in with two points each. Faille leads Orlando, and is third in the ECHL with 35 points (15g-20a) in 33 games. T.J. Foster is fourth among rookies with 12 goals and is tied for fifth with 29 points while Eric Baier is tied for seventh among defensemen with 22 points (6g-16a). The Solar Bears continue their road trip this week, visiting Kalamazoo on Tuesday, Fort Wayne on Friday and Indy on Saturday.