Peoria Falls to Evansville 4-1 In Post-Thanksgiving Clash
November 28, 2025 - 10:30 pm
PEORIA, IL – Despite a first-period lead, the Peoria Rivermen (8-5-0) fell on home ice to the Evansville Thunderbolts (10-2-1) by a score of 4-1 at Carver Arena on Friday night. The loss marked Peoria’s third straight against the Thunderbolts this season. Griffen Fox scored for the Rivermen while goaltender Nick Latinovich made 25 saves in the loss.
Peoria will host the Thunderbolts again on Saturday at 7:15 pm at Carver Arena for the final day of their Peanuts Weekend benefitting CityLink Stuff-A-Bus food drive campaign. The more canned goods and non-perishable food items fans donate, the better their odds in a raffle for a team-signed Peanuts jersey.
FIRST PERIOD
The contest started with a back-and-forth tempo in the first half of the period. Things opened up with Peoria’s first power play as Garrett Devine stepped in over the line and dropped a pass right to Alec Baer. Baer to the high slot as his teammates crashed the net, and Baer sent a quick wrist-shot toward the goal. Similar to Wednesday, Baer’s shot was deflected, this time by Griffen Fox, to put the Rivermen up 1-0. But just over three minutes later, the Thunderbolts managed to tie the game as Scott Kirton buried a rebound off of a net-mouth scramble. In the final minute of the period, Braydon Barker caught an Evansville stick up high that resulted in a double minor power play for Peoria that carried over into the second period.
SECOND PERIOD
Peoria had several good chances to take the lead early in the second period, but could not break through Evansville goaltender Kristian Stead on the extended power-play. Instead, Evansville took the lead midway through the second period on a back-door passing play that found Aiden Litke wide open for a tap-in to put the Bolts up 2-1. Despite outshooting the Bolts 9-8 in the second period, the Rivermen entered the third trailing 2-1.
THIRD PERIOD
Evansville added on to their lead just 55 seconds into the third period off a power-play goal by Kirton, who rifled a wrist-shot over the blocker of Nick Latinovich. Down 3-1, Peoria had several power plays to try to even the score, but came up empty. A late empty-net goal in the final two minutes put paid to any comeback attempt, and the Rivermen were forced to surrender their third straight contest to the Thunderbolts this season, all despite out-shooting Evansville 32-29 for the game and 12-8 in the third period.
Photo: Claire Schaffner
