The Milwaukee Admirals earned a hard-fought victory over the Oklahoma City Barons at the Bradley Center Sunday evening with a final score of 2-1. Despite a slow start for the Admirals, they were able to ride the hot stick of Chris Mueller, who scored the game-winning goal and assisted on the team’s first marker, to the victory.

This win moves Milwaukee (15-8-2-4) in to a tie with Oklahoma City (16-9-1-3) for third place in the West Division with 36 points.

Milwaukee may have been feeling the effects of their three games in three days in the opening period as they got off to a slow start being out-shot 12-2. Oklahoma City got on the board first 5:33 into the period on a goal by Liam Reddox. The Barons’ left-winger took the puck at the right point and was able to sneak a wrist shot past Milwaukee’s Jeremy Smith for the goal.

With the Ads down 1-0, Milwaukee answered back on some fancy stick handling by Mark Santorelli. Mueller and Santorelli went on a two-on-one attack off a pass from Teemu Laakso. Mueller led the way and dropped the puck to a trailing Santorelli. Santorelli faked a shot at the left circle, got the defender to commit, and stick handled his way around to the right. He then sliced a wrister through the defense and past Oklahoma City goaltender Martin Gerber to tie the game at 11:23 in the second.

Then Mueller was able to put away the eventual game-winner just 1:39 into the third. Linus Klasen brought the puck up past the Barons blue line and let go a wrist shot at Gerber from the right hash mark. The puck bounced off of Gerber’s left shoulder and Muller was flying down the right side and was there to knock in the rebound for the goal. Ads defender Scott Ford also notched an assist on the game-winner.

Mueller picked up first star honors with his two point night, his fifth of the season to go along with Laakso (1a), Ford (1a), Santorelli (1g), and Klasen (1a) who also tallied points for the Ads.

Smith had a strong showing in net for Milwaukee turning away 23 of 24 Baron shots to earn his fourth win of the season and his first on Bradley Center ice.

Milwaukee wrapped up their fourth three-in-three of the season with a 2-0-1-0 record and look to take this momentum into Friday as they take the ice against Lake Erie at the Bradley Center. Fans can purchase tickets by calling Ticketmaster or logging on to milwaukeeadmirals.com. Season tickets for the 10-11 campaign are still on sale, starting at just $145. For more information or to purchase season tickets fans can call the Admirals office at (414) 227-0550 or visit milwaukeeadmirals.com. Don’t forget to follow the Admirals on Twitter (@mkeadmirals) and on Facebook!