On Friday night, the Rapid City Rush won a hard fought game against the Arizona Sundogs. The Rush won by a score of 3-2 to stay undefeated for eight games into the season.

“Well we are 8-0, can’t get any better than that. We are just getting great team efforts on a nightly basis,” Joe Ferras said, Head Coach of the Rush, “Different guys are stepping up every night, and the work ethic and compete level has been outstanding.”

The Rush played three away games against the Sundogs, with the Rush winning all three games. On Friday, they played one of two home games against the Sundogs.

“We had seen them a lot, three times in Arizona, so we know what we were coming up against. So we just had to keep the same game plan and keep the wins rolling and fortunately enough got another win tonight,” Tim Boron said, #31 Rush Goal Tender.

The game started at 7:05 p.m. at the Rapid City Civic Center. Each game consists of three 20 minute periods with an 18 minute break in between. Within 12 minutes of the 1st period, the Sundogs had scored two goals. The Rush answered back with two goals of their own leaving the 1st period tied up. The Rush scored a goal in the 2nd period and the 3rd was a defensive battle to keep the lead.

“We know they got a great hockey club. Don’t look at their record; they could have won four games as easily as they could have lost four games,” said Ferras.

The general attitude of the team coming into this game was to keep the same game plan and play hard.

“We wanted to play tough in our end, and they have a few guys back in the lineup that are tough guys so we wanted to maintain a physical presence out there,” said Justin Sawyer, #29 Rush Left Defenseman. “We just want to keep rolling, and stay positive.”

According to RapidCityRush.com, the Rush won their first three preseason games and kept that streak rolling into the regular season. The Rush still has a lot of teams to play in the future and will look to face off against the Sundogs several more times throughout the season. The season will carry over in the end of March for the Rush.

The team already has made this season the most successful by far and work hard to make sure the team is successful in the rest of the season.

“We all know as a team what makes us successful, and we just go to do those things night in and night out,” Sawyer said. “It’s a tough thing to do, but we have a really tough group of guys in here and we all keep each other positive and everyone will pick each other up when we are down.”

Several team members have really stood out so far this season and have helped make this team successful. #21 Konrad Reeder and #10 Jesse Schultz has really made an impact on this team to help make it successful.

“Konrad’s got eight goals in eight games, which is unbelievable,” Ferras said. “And Jesse, that one two combination has been outstanding for us. They’re showing great leadership. Jesse’s played in the national hockey league and Konrad is 5 foot nothing and his heart is as big as this room, and it’s incredible for what he does on a nightly basis for this hockey club.”

On Saturday night, the Rush defeated the Sundogs with a score of 6-5 to sweep the five game series. This brings their total wins to nine this season.