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Watts Hat Trick Powers Americans to Road Victory Over Mavericks

It isn’t the number of shots on goal that count on the scoreboard as much as the number of goals.

This was certainly the case in Independence, Missouri on Saturday. The Kansas City Mavericks fired 48 shots at Allen Americans goaltender Luke Richardson, but only two went in. Meanwhile, the Americans threw 18 shots at Mavericks netminder Victor Ostman, with five finding the twine.

Brayden Watts earned a hat trick in the 5-2 victory for Allen, who stretches its record to 9-17-5, while the Mavericks fall to 20-8-4.

The Americans jumped out to a 1-0 lead just 33 seconds into the game on Watts’ first goal of the afternoon. Kyle Crnkovic picked up the assist.

Watts got his second tally at the 2:14 mark of the opening frame, increasing Allen’s lead to 2-0.

At 1:23 of the middle frame, Watts completed his natural hat trick to extend the lead to 3-0.

Spencer Asuchak added another to make the score 4-0 at 9:12, with Hudson Wilson and Watts getting helpers.

Allen came into Saturday with a 6-1-1 mark when leading after two periods, and that trend continued. The Mavericks didn’t quit, however, scoring their two goals in the third period. Cam Morrison got one at the 10:16 mark to extend his goal streak to three games and cut Allen’s lead to 4-1. Marcus Crawford extended his assist streak to four games on the play, and Damien Giroux was credited with the secondary helper.

The Americans extended their lead back to four on a Crnkovic goal at 15:46, assisted by Wilson to make the score 5-1.

Kansas City’s final goal came from Jackson Berezowski with just five seconds left in the contest, extending his goal streak to four games and ending the game with the 5-2 final in favor of Allen.

It was just the second victory in the last 15 games for the Americans, who got revenge after falling to the Mavericks on Friday at Cable Dahmer Arena by the same score. Saturday’s game was switched to an afternoon time slot because of a winter storm moving into the Kansas City area.