MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com -Syracuse, NY  – The Syracuse Crunch were defeated by the Hershey Bears tonight, 3-2, in front of 4,312 fans at the War Memorial at Oncenter.

After back-to-back shootout wins Friday and Saturday and playing their third game in four nights, the Crunch looked to get off to a fast start after dropping a 7-1 decision against first-place Hershey back on October 18.

The Crunch wasted no time and got on the board first just 13 seconds into the opening period.

Aaron Rome worked the puck up to Trevor Frischmon who skated in down the left wing and drove to the net. Frischmon got a shot away and a pileup ensued in search of the rebound.

Following the play, big Mike Blunden bulled his way to the net and cashed in on the loose puck, shuffling it past Hershey starter Daren Machesney to put the Crunch up 1-0.

Hershey tied the game on the power play at the 12:45 mark when Chris Bourque’s wrist shot from center point found its way through a screen and past Sebastian Dahm to make it 1-1.

The score stayed that way through the first 20 minutes as the Crunch outshot the high-powered Hershey offense 7-5 in the first frame.

The Crunch re-took the lead on a power play marker of their own six minutes into the second stanza.

Mike York slid the puck over to Nick Holden at the right point, who boomed a shot off the back boards that caromed in front of the net to a waiting Craig MacDonald. MacDonald corralled the puck and sent it top shelf before Machesney could get over to knock it away to make it 2-1 in favor of Syracuse.

Hershey again battled back to tie the game by scoring a shorthanded goal at the 14:25 mark of the second.

AHL leading goal-scorer Alexandre Giroux out-muscled Crunch defenseman Andrey Plekhanov in the right corner and made a strong move to the net. Giroux’s move sent Dahm down to the ice and his shot ticked off Dahm’s right pad and over the goal line to make it 2-2.

At the 14:08 mark of the third frame, Hershey took a lead that it never relinquished when Quintin Laing found an open Andrew Gordon in the slot whose bid just stuck inside the right post to give the Bears a 3-2 lead.

CRUNCHABLES: Center Derek MacKenzie appeared in his 100^th game as a member of the Crunch tonight...With 15 penalty minutes in tonight’s contest, Jon Mirasty moved past Scott Walker and David Ling and now has 398 penalty minutes as a member of the Crunch, putting him in ninth place on the club’s all-time list...Sebastian Dahm started his seventh straight game tonight.

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