By WJBC Staff

BLOOMINGTON – Saturdays are apparently for the Bloomington Thunder.

After battling back from a two-goal deficit last Saturday to win in a shootout, the Thunder did one better on Saturday night, storming back from a three-goal deficit to beat Sioux Falls, 5-4, in a shootout at the Coliseum.

The Thunder (14-12-3-0, 31 pts) answered deficits of 3-0 and 4-2 in regulation, and overcame three deficits in the shootout to earn their biggest come-from-behind win of the season.

Bloomington had cut the Sioux Falls’ lead to one near the end of the second period, but the Stampede (13-14-1-1, 28 pts) increased their lead back to two with a goal just 40 seconds into the third.

But for the second consecutive Saturday, the Thunder answered a two-goal, third period deficit. Tarek Baker scored on a wrist shot at the 10:24 mark of the third to trim the deficit back to one, and Mitchell Chaffee fired a laser past Sioux Falls goaltender Mikhail Berdin with 6:31 left in the game to complete the comeback.

Then in the shootout, Sioux Falls scored on their first shot to take the lead. Bloomington tied it with its second shooter, Baker. Neither team scored with their third shooter, sending the shootout to sudden death. The Stampede netted goals with both their fourth and fifth shooters to verge to the edge of the shootout win, but Mitchell Mattson and Wyatt Kalynuk answered, respectively, both times to keep the shootout going. Fittingly, Chaffee followed up his game-tying goal with the shootout winner in the eighth round.

The deficit for Bloomington was as much as 3-0, but after Sioux Falls scored just 1:15 into the middle frame to increase its lead to three, Bloomington upped the pressure and outshot Sioux Falls 38-17 in the final two periods and overtime.

Near the halfway point of the game, August von Ungern-Sternberg put the Thunder on the board. He took advantage of a Sioux Falls defensive lapse to net his second goal of the weekend, scoring on a breakaway to trim the deficit to 3-1. Ethan Somoza punched home a rebound with 51 seconds left in the middle stanza to get Bloomington within one.

With the shootout victory, the Thunder have now won their last six games decided in a shootout, dating back to Nov. 7, 2015. Baker and von Ungern-Sternberg both had multi-point games, as Baker picked up his second straight multi-point game following a two-assist game on Friday.

Gabe Mollot-Hill stopped 26 of 30 shots to earn the win, while the Thunder put a season-high 48 shots on goal on the other end of the ice.

Bloomington returns home for a pair of games next weekend, hosting the Tri-City Storm for a two-game series.