The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Rochester Americans tonight, 4-3 at the Blue Cross Arena.

It didn’t take long for the Crunch and Amerks to renew their 15-year old rivalry, as Jon Mirasty and Neil Clark exchanged pleasantries just 2:44 into the opening frame to set the tone for the season series.

The Crunch opened the scoring just over 14 minutes in, when Brian McGuirk found a rebound in front of Rochester starter Chris Beckford-Tseu from a Trevor Frischmon shot and put it past him for the 1-0 lead. Clay Wilson started the play by rushing the puck from end to end and dishing it off to Frischmon.

Rochester answered with just under three minutes to go in the frame on the man-advantage. Jason Garrison took a feed from Doug O’Brien and rifled a point shot past a screened Dan LaCosta to tie the game at 1-1.

After the Crunch killed off a carry-over penalty for the first 1:50 of the second period, highly-touted 18-year old Russian Nikita Filatov struck to make it a 2-1 Crunch lead. Filatov went to the net, took a perfect feed from Derek MacKenzie from behind the cage and sniped a shot low to the stick side of Beckford-Tseu.

Syracuse went up 3-1 on a power play goal from MacKenzie at the 9:52 mark of the second. Adam Pineault tipped a pass up to MacKenzie to create a 2-on-1 situation. MacKenzie faked a pass and ripped a wrister over the shoulder of Beckford-Tseu for the two-goal advantage.

Rochester would get one back during a 5-on-3 situation when Michal Repik sent a shot past LaCosta with just under four minutes to play in the stanza to cut it to 3-2.

The Crunch wasted no time in re-gaining their two-goal lead, when Mike York found a loose puck during a pile up in front of the net and poked the puck past Beckford-Tseu for the 4-2 Crunch advantage.

The Amerks had an answer once again, when Stefan Meyer connected with Janis Sprukts on a one-timer in front of the net to make it 4-3.

With the Beckford-Tseu pulled for the extra attacker, LaCosta stood tall in the final minute of play as he propelled the Crunch to the 4-3 victory.