Tomahawks fall to the Black Bears

Jan 28, 2022

The Johnstown Tomahawks fall to the Maryland Black Bears, 1-4 in a Friday evening matchup on the road.

In his third game in the red and navy goaltender, Matthew O’Donnell was behind the pipes for the Tomahawks. After an impressive outing last weekend, O’Donnell would look to continue his success in his third consecutive start. The first period got off to a rather slow start with a lot of back-and-forth action between the two division rivals. Both teams had their chances to strike first, but neither goaltender was determined to let that happen. The Tomahawks got the first powerplay attempt of the contest, after Maryland’s, Tyler Young was called for checking, but was unsuccessful. Maryland would go on to find the back of the net first after a Ryan Bottrill goal at 15:07. After an uneventful first period, the Tomahawks would head into the locker room down a goal.

Midway through the second period, the Tomahawks power-play unit was put to work for the second time in the game after Maryland was called for interference. During the Tomahawks man-advantage after many opportunities, the Hawks could not seem to get past Maryland’s goaltender. Maryland would go on to score back-to-back goals in the second period making it, 0-3. But after Maryland’s set of goals, Zach Murray answered with a power-play goal! With the assist of Jake Black, the Tomahawks would make it a two-goal game after 40 minutes.

Entering the final 20 minutes of regulation both teams were hungry for a win. There were many opportunities for the Tomahawks as well as the Black Bears to increase their respective scores, but both goaltenders continued an impressive outing with show-stopping saves. The silent third period included an empty-net goal from Maryland, which would be the only goal of the final period. The Tomahawks would fall to the Black Bears, 1-4.

The Tomahawks and Black Bears will face off tomorrow night at 7 PM for the final game of the weekend series. As always, follow all things Tomahawks on all of our social media accounts or watch live on HockeyTV.