Penguins Beats Bears 3-2

Photo: Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

The Hershey Bears fell to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 3-2 Sunday afternoon in Wilkes-Barre. The Bears and Pens would exchange scores in the first and second period, making it 2-2 at the second intermission. The Baby Pens would take a 3-2 lead midway through the third and that would be the final. The Bears return to action Friday night when they visit the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in Allentown. Puck drop is 7:05 p.m.

STARTERS
Pheonix Copley started in goal for the Bears. Casey DeSmith started between the pipes for the Penguins. The starting forwards and defensive pairs for the Bears:

Forwards:
Whitney-Boyd-Barber
Walker-Graovac-Simpson
O’Brien-Langlois-Gazley
M.Mitchell-Sill-Peluso
Defensive Pairs:
Ness-Hobbs
Siegenthaler-Lewington
Johansen-Williams

Bears Scratches: Mathias Bau (Lower Body), Tommy Hughes, Anthony Peluso and Mason Mitchell.

FIRST PERIOD
The Bears would get things started when Riley Barber notched the game’s first tally just 2:09 into the opening frame. The goal was setup by a beautiful backhanded centering pass from Travis Boyd from behind the goal. The Boyd pass was very similar to the Caps’ Evgeny Kuznetsov’s “twister pass”.

But the Penguins would tie the game with a goal from Tom Kostopoulous just 51 seconds later.

The period would end with the game tied 1-1. The Penguins outshot the Bears 10-8 for the opening frame.

SECOND PERIOD
The Penguins would grab their first lead of the game on a power play goal with 4:04 remaining in the middle frame.

But the Bears would get it right back with a goal from Tyler Graovac at 17:08 of the second period. Graovac was on the end of a beautiful tic-tac-goal pass play started by Nathan Walker and Wayne Simpson.

The second period would end with the game tied 2-2. The Bears outshot the Penguins 7-4 for the second period, and led 15-14 after two periods of play.

THIRD PERIOD
The Baby Pens would retake the lead with a break away goal by Adam Johnson at 10:06 of the third period.