Jared Westcott had two goals and an assist, Noah Giesbrecht made 35 saves in his professional debut and the Knoxville Ice Bears scored five unanswered goals to defeat the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs 5-1 at the Civic Coliseum Sunday night.

 

Carson Vance, Eric Olson and Davide Gaeta also scored for Knoxville, winners of five of seven. Ryan Kuzmich and Andrew Kurapov each had two assists. 

 

Matt Dorsey netted the only goal of the opening period when he picked up a rebound and sped behind the Knoxville net and converted a wraparound to make it 1-0 at 11:24.

 

Giesbrecht kept Knoxville in reach down the stretch of the first period. He kicked away Joe Widmar’s short range attempt and stopped Gustav Müller from in tight.

 

Vance tied the game for Knoxville early in the second when his shot from the right point bounced off Brody Claeys’ glove, hit the right post and skipped across the goal line for Vance’s second goal of the year.

 

Westcott gave Knoxville its first lead of the game when he stole the puck in the left circle and beat Claeys down low with a quick wrist shot at 17:09 of the second.

 

Giesbrecht blocked Travis Broughman’s wrister from the slot through a screen and turned aside Andrew Stacey’s short-side attempt with the blocker to preserve Knoxville’s lead at the second intermission.

 

Olson scored on a drag shot when Kurapov slipped him the puck out in front. Olson used the toe of his stick blade to pull the puck around Joe Widmar before his shot bounced in off of Claeys to make it 3-1 at 4:27 of the third.

 

Westcott’s second of the night gave Knoxville a 4-1 lead when he entered the zone for an odd man rush and fed the puck to Blake Tosto. Tosto skated through the slot before putting the puck back on Westcott’s stick with an open net in front of him at 12:34.

 

Gaeta wrapped up the scoring with a one-timer at the right hash thanks to a cross-ice feed from Brendan Dowler with 56 seconds remaining. Claeys finished with 41 saves.

 

Knoxville heads to Evansville on Friday. The Rail Yard Dawgs are in Macon Friday night.