By WJBC Staff
BLOOMINGTON – Ethan Somoza stretched his career-high point streak to six games with a goal and Tarek Baker struck for his team-leading sixth power-play tally of the year, but the Youngstown Phantoms outlasted Bloomington in a 10-round shootout to edge the Thunder, 3-2, on Sunday.
Despite the shootout loss, the point helped Bloomington (17-13-3-1, 38 pts) move into a tie with Green Bay for fifth place in the Eastern Conference.
Austin Pooley scored a pair of goals for the second consecutive meeting between the two teams to help the Phantoms (20-12-4-1) overcome a pair of one-goal deficits and increase their lead to seven points over the Thunder for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Bloomington was rewarded with a power-play in the extra session and had several quality scoring chances to win, but Youngstown goaltender Ivan Kulbakov made eight of his 26 saves in overtime to get the game to a shootout. Kulbakov then denied all 10 Thunder shootout attempts to end the Thunder’s three-game home winning streak.
Following a 3-2 come-from-behind victory on Saturday night against Team USA, Bloomington never trailed until the 10th round of the shootout when Dominic Dockery netted the only goal of the shootout. The Thunder struck first on Baker’s power play tally in the first period, as he slapped home a rebound at the 15:50 mark of the opening frame for his 11th goal of the season. The University of Wisconsin commit is now tied for the team lead in that category.
Pooley tied the game in the early stages of the second period, but Bloomington quickly responded to wrestle the lead back. Somoza blasted a one-timer from just left of the goal mouth with a delayed penalty upcoming to Youngstown to make it 2-1 with 5:27 gone in the second. The Simi Valley, California, native has seven points on three goals and four assists in his point streak.
Again, Pooley played spoiler as he found the back of the net with 6:07 to play in the middle stanza to knot the game.
Goaltender Gabe Mollot-Hill turned in another strong performance with 28 saves on 30 shots to help the Thunder salvage a point and earn three of four possible points over the weekend.
The shootout loss was the Thunder’s first since Nov. 7, 2015.
Bloomington plays a three games in three days next weekend, starting with road games in Green Bay and Chicago on Friday and Saturday, respectively. The Thunder then host the U.S. National Team Under-18 team next Sunday afternoon for Local Heroes Night to finish the weekend.
