Bears break losing streak in Charlotte winning 5-4
12-21-17
Emily Fontanella & Matt Bachota
The first period opened up with a scoring frenzy as Hershey would put five goals on the board before the end of twenty minutes. Colby Williams would find the back of the net first at 1:57 into the period on a short handed goal. Tyler Graovac and John Albert would each get a point on the play. Anthony Peluso would follow up less than four minutes later scoring goal number two for Hershey at 6:45. Mason Mitchell would get his third assist on the season along with Aaron Ness. At 9:55 Wayne Simpson would score his sixth goal of the season and third of the night for the Bears bringing the game to 3-0 Hershey. Travis Boyd would find a pass from Chris Bourque at 14:12 to score on the power play making it 4-0, but that wasn’t the case for long as just fourteen second later Riley Barber would score yet again making it 5-0. Tyler Graovac and John Albert would get their second points of the night with they helpers on the goal. This would be the biggest outburst of goals for any period for the Bears this season.
The Charlotte Checkers would answer back at 17:57 and bring the hopes of Vanecek shutout to and end. Julien Gauthier would make the game 5-1 going into the second period. This would also open up a rally of goals from Charlotte with no responses from Hershey. Almost halfway into the second period, Aleksi Saarela would score on Charlotte’s power play making it 5-2. Fourteen minutes into the period Warren Foegele would score again bring Charlotte within one going into the third.
The third period would see yet another power play goal for Charlotte, as Chris Bourque headed to the bock for a slashing minor, which would result in Sergey Tolchinsky making the game 5-4 at the twelve minute mark. Luckily, the period would end with no more goals being scored and Hershey would come out on top 5-4. Charlotte would out shoot Hershey 39-18, and Vanecek would stop 35 of 39 shots.
Hershey will be back in Charlotte tonight, same time, same place, to face off against the Checkers yet again. The Bears then return home before the Christmas break to host the Binghamton Devils for a 7pm puck drop at Giant Center on Saturday evening.
