The Cleveland Monsters beat the Syracuse Crunch 3-2 on Friday evening at Rocket Arena. With the win, the Monsters lead the best-of-five North Division Semifinals, presented by truenorth Convenience Stores, 1-0.

Cleveland’s Justin Pearson got the scoring started early with a goal at 4:35 of the opening frame with helpers from Hudson Fasching and Jack Williams. Monsters’ Will Butcher added a tally at 14:26 off feeds from Mikael Pyyhtiä and Corson Ceulemans while Ceulemans notched a goal of his own at 18:20 assisted by Luca Del Bel Belluz and Owen Sillinger to give the Monsters a 3-0 lead heading into the middle frame. Syracuse’s Dylan Duke scored the only goal of the second period at 1:51 to make it 3-1 Cleveland through 40 minutes. The Crunch’s Mitchell Chaffee notched one more at 4:02 of the third period but the Monsters would ultimately earn the 3-2 victory.

Cleveland’s Zach Sawchenko stopped 29 shots for the win while Syracuse’s Jon Gillies made 3 saves and Brandon Halverson made 9 saves in defeat.

The Monsters play Game 2 of the North Division Semifinals presented by truenorth Convenience Stores against the Syracuse Crunch on Sunday, April 26th at Rocket Arena at 4:00 p.m. Follow the game with full coverage on SportsRadio 99.1 Powered by Rock Entertainment Group, 1390 The Gambler WNIO-AM, AHLTV on FloHockey and the Monsters Hockey Network.

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GAME SHEET – GAME PHOTOS – GAME HIGHLIGHTS*

*Game highlights will appear as soon as possible following video processing.