SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — The Springfield Thunderbirds (30-24-2-4) valiantly battled back in the final period but could not hold off the defending champion Hershey Bears (38-15-5-1), who skated out of the MassMutual Center with a 4-2 win on Wednesday night. 

After an uncharacteristically tough weekend that saw him allow 12 goals, Colten Ellis picked himself back up and shined in the opening 20 minutes with 15 denials against a confident Hershey attack that had tallied 14 goals in its last three games. The netminder's finest work came on an odd-man chance for Hendrix Lapierre and a dangerous slot shot by Chase Priskie during a delayed penalty.

At the other end, Hunter Shepard did not face the same onslaught of offerings, but he came up big on a pair of power-play stops against Dalibor Dvorsky. At the same time, Springfield also fell victim to harsh luck from the posts as both Dvorsky and Nikita Alexandrov rang the iron in the opening stanza. 

After a quiet first half of period two, the Bears finally cracked the scoreless drought at 10:54 as Vincent Iorio held a clearing attempt in at the blue line and handed it to Matt Strome, who circled the zone to the left wing before lifting a wrister over Ellis on the stick side to make it 1-0. 

Springfield managed to keep the deficit at a single goal with a third successful penalty kill, but less than 20 seconds later, at the 14:55 marker, Bogdan Trineyev stepped into a one-time missile from the right side off a drop pass from Henrik Rybinski to extend the lead to 2-0.

In desperate need of a spark, the T-Birds got one from Hugh McGing after he drew a penalty after roaring in on goal following a defensive blue-line interception. On the ensuing power play, MacKenzie MacEachern crashed the blue paint, where McGing found him on a centering pass to cut the lead to 2-1 with 8:29 to play. 

Over the next minute, the Bears committed two more penalties to put Springfield on a 5-on-3 advantage, where Dvorsky cashed in with his 20th of the season and 10th on the man advantage at 12:31 to tie the game.

With newfound life, the T-Birds pressed for a go-ahead tally, but their division foes had one more trick up their sleeve as Ethan Bear crept down into the low slot from his blue line position and beat Ellis off a neat pass from Ivan Miroshnichenko to restore the Hershey lead with 4:17 to go.

Springfield could not come up with another equalizer from there, and Pierrick Dube added an empty-net tally to round out the night for the visitors. 

The T-Birds look to rebound on Friday as they host the Milwaukee Admirals at 7:05 p.m. inside the Thunderdome. 

Fans can get their Thunderbirds tickets today by calling (413) 739-GOAL (4625) or by visiting www.SpringfieldThunderbirds.com.