Tuesday night in Kennewick, WA the Prince George Cougars dropped a 4-1 decision to the Tri-City Americans. Jordan Topping had two goals for the Ams while Parker Bowles, Brandon Carlo, Dylan Coghlan and Tyler Sandhu also contributed two points each. Chase Witala had the Cougars lone goal which came late in the third period.

Tri-City led 1-0 after the first period thanks to a goal at 7:15 from Parker Bowles. Moments earlier, Bowles was robbed on a breakaway effort via Cougars starting goaltender Ty Edmonds, who despite the loss played a strong game for the Cougars stopping 29 of the 32 shots fired his way, many of which were top quality scoring chances. TrI-City ended up outshooting the Cougars 11-3 in the first.

Moments after Bowles made it 1-0 the Cougars lost captain Sam Ruopp for the remainder of the game after he sprawled to block a shot while killing a penalty. Ruopp took Tyler Sandhu’s one-timer up high and went down instantly. He was helped off the ice and he didn’t return.

Early in the second Morgan Geekie extended Tri-City’s lead to 2-0 when he knocked home a power play goal at the 2:16 mark. On their end the Cougars fired nine shots at the Americans’ net in the middle-frame but couldn’t solve 17-year-old Nicholas Sanders. At the other side of the ice, Ty Edmonds was superb making a number of flashy saves to keep the game within reach for his team.

Jordan Topping extended the Americans’ lead to 3-0 early in the third period at the 5:03 mark. A few shifts earlier, Sanders made a terrific breakaway save off of Brad Morrison to keep his shutout bid in tact.

With under seven minutes to go in the third, the Cougars solved Sanders when Chase Witala beat him from in close on a backhand deke. Brad Morrison and Joe Carvalho ended up assisting on Witala’s 35^th goal of the season.

That’s as close as the Cougars would come though as Jordan Topping notched his second of the period into an empty net with 1:31 to go in the game to seal the 4-1 victory for the Ams.

Each team had three power play chances with the Cougars going zero-for-three while the Americans went one-for-three.

The loss moves the Cougars overall record to 32-24-3-1 through 60 games. The Cougars remain five points up on Kamloops for third in the B.C. Division. Both teams have played the same amount of games.

Next up for the Cougars: Their first meeting of the season with the Spokane Chiefs which takes place on Wednesday night from the Spokane Arena.