Hershey Loses to Binghamton in Skills Competition, 5-4
HERSHEY, PA – Philipp Grubauer looks back at the shootout winning goal during Hershey’s 5-4 loss (Kyle Mace / Sweetest Hockey on Earth)
Sunday night’s Hershey Bears game may show up as an overtime shootout loss, but the Bears showed up with two of their best efforts of the season this weekend. Hershey lost to Binghamton 5-4, but picked up three of four standings points and have now picked up points in five of their last six games.
The first of ten meetings between the Senators and Bears is likely to set the tone for the rest of the season. The game was marred by a match penalty against Binghamton’s Chris Wideman, when he swung his stick after taking an elbow from Josh Mitchell. It caused a near line brawl between the two teams.
“Pretty vicious play. I haven’t seen that in a long time,” said Bears coach Mike Haviland. “I haven’t seen anybody baseball swing like that at anybody in a long time. The league will handle that.”
After the Bears Josh Brittain got goal to give Hershey a first period lead, Binghamton scored three unanswered goals to go ahead 3-1 in the second period. Following the Wideman penalty, Jeff Taffe got a power play goal to cut the Senators lead to one with two seconds left in the second period.
But with a five minute power play, the Bears gave up a shorthanded goal to Buddy Robinson that gave Binghamton a 4-2 advantage.
Hershey came back with a gritty effort to tie the game. Casey Wellman’s power play goal in the third period cut the lead to 4-3. Then with less than four minutes left, John Mitchell put on a Bobby Orr like move, carrying the puck through the Binghamton zone to tally a shorthanded goal that made it 4-4.
The Bears were outscored in the shootout 2-1 and lost the game 5-4, but finished off a strong weekend with another standings point.
“It’s good to see our team play with emotion,” said Haviland. “I was really proud of them tonight. We battled back and showed some character, passion and emotion. It’s everything we have been talking about and want to see from this team. We got three out of four points this weekend. I thought we played well enough to win tonight too.”
The Bears are off until Wednesday when they travel to North Carolina to play the Charlotte for back-to-back game.