By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor

PELHAM – Through 38 games, and with 18 games left in the regular season, the Birmingham Bulls are well on their way to making the Southern Professional Hockey League playoffs in their second year as a team.

The Bulls have been hot for the majority of the season and picked up their sixth win in the last seven games on Tuesday, Feb. 12, by taking down the third-place Huntsville Havoc in a dominant 4-1 victory, which snapped a two-game losing streak to the in-state rival.

Birmingham got two goals from Mike Davis in the victory and never trailed after scoring three unanswered goals between the second and third periods to pick up its 26th win of the season.

Now with an overall record of 26-10-2, the Bulls have a total of 54 points, which has them 26 points ahead of the final playoff spot, and six points ahead of the Havoc in third place.

Peoria, Birmingham’s next game on Friday, Feb. 15, still sits atop the league standings with 64 points thanks to a 30-4-4 overall record.

Against Huntsville, the Bulls were able to get off to a quick start thanks to Davis’ first goal 6:27 into the game. He was able to take advantage of some nice puck movement, as Josh Harris and Russell Jordan both picked up an assist on the goal.

Thanks to a hooking penalty by Justin Larson close to six minutes later, Huntsville was able to pick up a power-play goal from Trevor Gerling just 10 seconds into the power play to even the score at 1-1, which held up the rest of the period.

After that lone power-play goal, Birmingham’s defense was able to play lights out the rest of the night. Despite putting Huntsville on the power play five more times, the Havoc were unable to convert on any of the opportunities.

While the Bulls also struggled on the power play, going 0-5, they were able to play better hockey at full strength offensively and took the lead for good with 2:58 to play in the second period.

After a very quiet first 17 minutes to the period, Caleb Apperson was able to find an open lane off assists from Larson and Fuller to give the Bulls a 2-1 advantage heading to the final period of play.

Similar to the opening period, Davis was able to get a goal in the first 10 minutes of the final period thanks to an assist from Russel Jordan, which put the Birmingham on top 3-1 with 12:34 left in the game.

The game had several long spurts of no goals, despite the four combined goals to that point, and neither team really found any offensive success the rest of the third until Harris took advantage of an empty net.

With the Havoc pulling their goalie to get an extra attacker on the ice, Harris took advantage and ended the game on his empty-net goal with 43 seconds to play to give the Bulls a 4-1 victory.

Davis, Harris and Jordan all had two points in the win, while eight different players in all had at least one point for the Bulls.

Sebastian Andersson also had an incredible night in goal stopping 28 of 29 shots face, only giving up the one power-play goal.

Birmingham will now hit the road for a three-game stretch, before returning home for a two-game series against Knoxville Feb. 22-23.