After grabbing ahold of the USHL Western Conference final playoff spot on Friday, the Lincoln Stars were backed into a corner on Saturday.
The Omaha Lancers defeated the Stars 3-1 Saturday at the Ice Box, keeping the race to the Clark Cup Playoffs neck-and-neck.
“What's done is done — what's done is done. We have a two-game season,” Lincoln head coach Rocky Russo said. “It's kind of par for the course. All year long we've had chances like this and we have thrown them in the dumpster. We did it yet again tonight.
“Now we have a two-game season next weekend and we've got to win. It's just that simple.”
Lincoln (23-26-3-2) and Omaha were tied after 20 minutes of play after exchanging first-period goals.
Nicolas Sykora opened the scoring 6:14 into the opening frame for Omaha, but Jack Pechar and his sixth power-play goal of the season and 19th overall knotted the score at 9:31.
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It was deadlocked 1-1 for nearly the next 30 minutes until a Camron VanSickle shot trickled past Lincoln goaltender Yan Shostak and gave the Lancers a 2-1 lead at 11:49, and a Nick Pierre empty-net goal with 24 seconds left in regulation sealed it.
Lincoln hosts Sioux City on Friday before traveling to face the Musketeers next Saturday to close out the regular season with a two-point lead over Des Moines for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
“We probably need to shoot more pucks in the net than they do,” Russo said for the Stars needing to win. “If we play the way we played (Saturday), that's probably not going to happen,” Russo said. “If we are willing to play the way we played last night (Friday) we will have success.
“We don't want to go in front of that net. … There is multiple chances where we make that one extra pass (and) handle the puck. We didn't play clean tonight.”
Friday's contest against Sioux City is set for 7 p.m. at the Ice Box, while Saturday's game is at 6 p.m. at the Tyson Events Center.