By Kahlil Najar
SAN FRANCISCO – In their first meeting in San Francisco since the playoffs last year, the San Francisco Bulls(12-17-4-1)) were defeated by the Alaska Aces (9-9-1-1(, 3-2. Steven Tarasuk and Dean Ouellet scored for the Bulls and Tyler Beskorowany stopped 31 of 34 shots. Martin, Molle and Sisca put up the tally’s for the Aces and Olivier Roy stopped 17 shots from the Bulls.
The Bulls came out fast in the first period as they pelted Roy with four straight shots before the Aces got their first shot on goal. However that first shot got the Aces on the board. James Martin took a nice wrist shot and beat Beskorowany with 8:03 gone in the first. With a little over three minutes left in the first Dean Ouellet scored on a nice feed from Dale Mitchell that Ouellet was able to lift over a sprawled Roy.
In the second, the Aces kept pounding the puck towards Beskorowany and while Besko was laid out on the ground Dustin Molle was able to life the puck over the Bulls goalie and gave the Aces the 2-1 lead with 4:58 left in the period. Less than three minutes later, the Bulls had the puck in the Aces zone and it looked like they were applying a ton of pressure on and had the Aces on their heels. Then the Aces Brad Richard stuck his stick out and intercepted a Bulls pass and found a streaking Mathew Sisca who was one-on-one with Besko and beat him top shelf with a quick wrister to give the Aces a two goal lead at the end of 40 minutes.
In the final period, Steven Tarasuk, who was recently picked up by the Bulls continued his hot streak as he was able to catch the puck on a crazy bounce in front of the Aces goal and push it in to bring the deficit to one goal and make it 3-2. With a little over one minute left in the game and on a power play Pat Curcio pulled Besko and even though the Bulls were able to take three quality shots, Roy was able to turn them all away and hand the Bulls their 17th loss of the season.
“We looked lazy at times but I thought towards the end we battled hard. We could have got lucky and got a point and took it into overtime. We had an opportunity there at the end but Dale (Mitchell) missed it and that’s the way it goes,” said Head Coach Pat Curcio on the final minutes of the game. “It is what it is. We need to be a bunch that overcomes adversity and we’ve done it all year. We’ll look to rebound tomorrow.”
The Bulls and Aces head back at it tomorrow night at the Cow Palace at 7:30pm.
Sports Radio Service 