By WJBC Staff

BLOOMINGTON – Resilience has become second nature for the Bloomington Thunder in the last several weeks.

After falling in a two-goal hole in the first period, the Thunder (15-12-3-0, 33 pts) stormed back to tie the game in the early stages of the second period. Vlad Dzhioshvili then completed the comeback with his goal 3:31 into overtime to lift Bloomington to a 3-2 win over Tri-City at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum.

With less than four minutes to go in overtime, Thunder defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk (University of Wisconsin) drove down the right wing and angled to the front of the net. Tri-City goaltender Dayton Rasmussen made the initial stop, but Dzhioshvili (University of Vermont) collected the rebound at the left post and fired it home for his team-leading 11th goal of the season. Five of the last six wins for Bloomington are come-from-behind victories.

Tri-City (12-14-3-2, 29 pts) opened the scoring just 57 seconds into the opening period as Linus Weissbach fired a wrist shot from the slot past Thunder goaltender Logan Halladay. The Storm doubled the lead on a power-play goal from Adam Goodsir at the 9:36 mark.

But the Thunder were hardly phased by the early deficit. After allowing two goals on the first six shots he faced, Halladay (Merrimack College) found a zone the rest of the night, stopping the final 17 shots he faced to earn the win.

The Thunder offense then picked up the pace, scoring twice in a four-minute stretch bridging the end of the first period and beginning of the second frame. Mitchell Mattson (University of North Dakota/Calgary Flames) got the Thunder on the board with his sixth of the season, firing a shot from along the right wing wall that deflected past Rasmussen.

Then captain Tarek Baker (University of Wisconsin) drew the game even in the early stages of the second period. Dzhioshvili started that play by driving to the net, and Baker collected a rebound in the low slow and hammered it past Rasmussen at the 2:33 mark of the second.

From there, the game stayed equal until Dzhioshvili’s overtime winner. Although the Thunder have won two games in shootouts over the last three weekends, Friday’s overtime win was the first overtime victory of the season, with the last coming on Feb. 25, 2016, last season.

Halladay finished 21 saves to earn his ninth win of the season.

Bloomington takes on the Storm in the series finale on Saturday night, which is Faith & Family Night. Due to the travel schedule with a game in Youngstown on Monday, the Thunder players will not take part in the postgame skate, but fans will still be able to skate on the Coliseum ice after the game.