HERSHEY, Pa. — 88 seconds into Hershey’s meeting with Charlotte on Sunday evening, the Bears found themselves in a hole. Checkers’ winger Nolan Foote centered a pass to Nate Smith, who quickly finished and put Charlotte ahead 1-0. 

The Bears went on to outshoot the Checkers in the opening period, 9-6. But Charlotte still controlled the scoreboard.

Later, with 1:29 to go in the middle period, the Checkers doubled down. A loose puck was scooped up by Charlotte’s Robert Mastrosimone, easily dishing to Michael Benning for a second Charlotte score. Hershey’s third loss seemed inevitable.

Then, just short of midway through the third period at GIANT Center on Sunday night, a spark lit for the Bears. Spencer Smallman buried a wrist shot past Checkers’ goalkeeper Cooper Black to put Hershey on the board for the first time.

One minute, 49 seconds later, the game was tied, 2-2. It came courtesy of a Louie Belpedio slapshot from the point off back-and-forth passing with Brett Leason. A crowd of 10,267 fans erupted in Hershey, and the next 11:51 remaining were sure to be entertaining.

A fate that once seemed inevitable to a loss, now seemed inevitable to overtime as minutes ticked by.

With 3:37 left, Dalton Smith was hit with a tripping penalty that put Hershey on the penalty kill. They did kill the penalty, but 18 seconds later, Charlotte struck. Sandis Vilmanis buried the game-winner for Charlotte on a bang-bang play in front of goalkeeper Mitch Gibson to put Charlotte ahead, 3-2.

With an empty net, Hershey tacked on three more shots in a last-ditch effort to tie the game once again, but Black stayed strong in net and a strong comeback effort fell just short against the team that ended Hershey’s season last May.

“Hats off to them,” said Hershey Head Coach Derek King on his players’ comeback efforts. “Coming back after, you know, playing last night in Wilkes-Barre and losing and playing a bad first period [Saturday], I thought we came out and played well for three periods. Again, [Charlotte’s] a good hockey team. And we had many opportunities to score goals and they just weren’t going in. And obviously they went in when we needed them, but we need to defend a little better there at the end.”

It’s the first loss for Gibson as Hershey’s netminder in his career, a Hershey record of 6-1 spanning back to the 2023-24 regular season. Sunday, the 2018 Capitals draft pick was battling an opposing goalkeeper that he saw twice in college. Gibson and Black battled twice in the 2022-23 NCAA season, as Gibson’s team at Harvard defeated Black at Dartmouth twice.

Now, after three straight losses, Hershey will have two practices set for Monday and Tuesday before visiting PPL Center in Allentown for a battle against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. It’s the team’s first trip to the Lehigh Valley since November 15, a 4-3 win over another foe from last year’s playoff bracket.

“Every team in this league is good,” said Louie Belpedio, who spent the last three seasons with the Phantoms. “They’ve [Charlotte] got some good players, they work hard, they play the right way, similar to us. Obviously they got the win tonight, so we’ve just got to put it in the past and move on to Wednesday.”

The New Year’s Eve tilt in Allentown is set for 3:05 p.m., between the current fourth and fifth place teams in the Atlantic Division standings.