NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – For most of the early season, the Orlando Solar Bears have been an offensive wonder, averaging close to four goals a contest coming into Saturday night’s game against the South Carolina Stingrays. When they left the North Charleston Coliseum, the average dropped a bit.
Stingrays goalie Shawn Hunwick made 31 saves to pick his first professional shutout and his teammates scored in each period to post a 3-0 victory over the visiting Solar Bears. It was the first win by South Carolina in three tries against Orlando this year.
The Solar Bears were back in North Charleston for the second time this week as well as playing their third game in three days in three different cities. They were also missing defenseman Kyle Medvec, the hero in Orlando’s win against the Stingrays on Tuesday, and blue liner Corbin Baldwin who was called up by the AHL Houston Aeros Saturday morning.
Playing with s slightly shuffled lineup, Orlando wanted to avoid playing from behind as they had in six of their first nine games. The Solar Bears did a much better job, surviving an early penalty killing chance as goalie John Curry, playing in his second consecutive game, looked good between the pipes.
Despite a good period defensively and eleven shots on the offensive end, the Solar Bears fell behind late in the stanza. At the 16:12 mark, Stingrays defenseman Tyler Johnson sent a shot at the Orlando net. Kevin Petovello redirected the shot but Curry made the save. Unfortunately for Orlando, the rebound got loose and Hunter Bishop shoveled it home. It would be the only score of the period.
With every second that passed as the game wound into the second period, Hunwick seemed to get more and more confident. It helped greatly that his defense was not allowing any real tough shots or close in chances. Curry (23 saves) matched Hunwick throughout most of the middle stanza.
With just a couple of seconds over five minutes left before the intermission, South Carolina was able to capitalize on a close-in chance. This time Bishop got the assist as he fed the puck to Dylan Clarke who was in front of the Orlando net. As he was being hit and knocked off his skates, Clarke was able to lift the puck into the top right corner of the net over Curry to give the Stingrays a 2-0 lead that they took to the break.
Down by a pair starting the final period, the Solar Bears hoped they could repeat Friday night’s third period performance where they scored twice against Greenville to push the game to overtime. Helped by two chances on the power play, they upped the pressure but Hunwick was calm, cool and collected between the pipes for the home team. Orlando pulled Curry late in the contest, trying to get on the board but with six seconds remaining, Alden Hirschfeld dashed the Solar Bears slight glimmer of hope with an empty net score.
The loss left Orlando (5-3-1-1) with a 2-2 record on the week-long South Division road trip and dropped the Solar Bears to second place in the division behind Gwinnett which won its game against Elmira on Saturday. The Solar Bears will return to the Amway Center to begin a seven game home stand on Wednesday against the Gladiators. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com Follow us on Twitter @prohockeynews
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