On February 1st, the Evansville Thunderbolts took on the Birmingham Bulls at home in the Ford Center. It was a back and forth game, with the Thunderbolts eventually picking up the win.
In the first period, the Thunderbolts got the scoring started in the second minute with a power play goal by Demico Hannoun, assisted by Austin Plevy and Derek Sutliffe. Birmingham struck back in the eighth minute with a goal by Cole Stallard that was assisted by Cole Golka and Karel Drahorad. Immediately after in the ninth minute, Matthew Barnaby had an unassisted goal to put the Thunderbolts up two to one. The Thunderbolts would go up three to one after a goal by Derek Sutliffe, assisted by Braden Hellems and Seth Swenson.
In the first period, there were four penalties called. Three were called on Birmingham: holding on Lane Valimont, roughing on Russell Jordan, and delay of game on Karel Drahorad. The Evansville penalty was roughing on Noah Corson
The second period was pretty evenly matched, with the only goal being scored for Birmingham by the SPHL 2017-18 Rookie of the Year, Jacob Barber on the power play and being assisted by Russell Jordan and Josh Harris in the eleventh minute. Two penalties were called on Evansville, the first being a tripping call on Zane Jones, and Stanislav Dzakhov was called for high sticking. Birmingham’s Alex Johnson was called for slashing.
There was a lot of action in the third period. Evansville scored back to back with another goal from Matthew Barnaby in the ninth minute, assisted by Noah Corson and Braden Hellems, and a goal by Stanislav Dzakhov in the twelfth minute on the powerplay, assisted by Braden Hellems and Matthew Barnaby. That would make the score five to two in Evansville’s favor. Birmingham started to mount a comeback when Cole Stallard scored back to back goals, one being assisted by Aaron Huffnagle and Karel Drahorad in the fifteenth minute and the other being assisted by Aaron Huffnagle and JM Piotrowski in the nineteenth minute. Evansville would put away the Bulls with an empty net goal by Derek Sutliffe and assisted by Austin Plevy in the last few seconds of the game.
This goal would cause a fight to break out between the two teams. Demico Hannoun started it with an elbow and got into a fight with Burminghams’s Cole Golka. They both got fighting penalties. Braedyn Asselstine (Thunderbolts) and Josh Harris (Bulls) were both given continuing altercation penalties for continuing the fight after the game.
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