Pastujov impresses in pro debut at Indy

Indianapolis, IN – The Iowa Heartlanders suffered a 5-2 loss to the Indy Fuel Friday at Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Michael Pastujov had two assists in his professional debut, including a marvelous deke and set up to T.J. Fergus midway through the third to make it 4-2. Indy bagged an empty netter to complete the scoring thanks to Jan Mandat, who registered his first ECHL hat trick.Hunter Jones blocked 31 in defeat. Zach Driscoll won with 22 saves.Indy scored the first two goals of the game; Mandat opened with a short-handed goal at 8:56 and Alex Wideman deposited a right-post hopper at 16:49.In the second, Chad Yetman scored on a back-door, right-post pass from Mitch Hoelscher to make it 3-0. Seven seconds later, Iowa got on the board to cut the lead back to two. Off the face-off at center ice, Zach White knifed through the middle over the right side of the Fuel line and shot it off Tommy Parrottino’s stick. The puck redirected in at the left post for Parrottino’s second as a pro. White and Michael Pastujov assisted.Seven minutes later, Indy struck back with Mandat’s second of the game, making it 4-1.In the third, Fergus scored with about eight minutes left to cut the Indy advantage to two. Striding in at the right slot, Fergus received a beautiful pass cross slot from Pastujov and Fergus sniped in his first pro goal. Box ScoreIowa returns home Nov. 6 at 2:05 p.m. at Xtream Arena vs. division foe Fort Wayne. Iowa is also home on Sun., Nov. 20 for SpongeBob SquarePants Nickelodeon Day presented by Advance Auto Parts. View the team’s full promo schedule at iowaheartlanders.com/promotions.  Single-game tickets, group ticket options, partial plans and season ticket memberships are available for Heartlanders home games at Xtream Arena.  Call 319-569-GOAL or visit iowaheartlanders.com/tickets for more information.