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The Birmingham Bulls continued their blistering offensive form, scoring five goals against the Macon Mayhem in a game that saw lots of hard-hitting action and Carson Rose extend his league-leading goal tally. (Contributed/Maxwell Barton and Birmingham Bulls)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

PELHAM – After putting seven goals past the Knoxville Ice Bears in their last outing, the Birmingham Bulls continued their offensive dominance as they defeated the Macon Mayhem 5-2 on Friday, Nov. 22 at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena.

After the Bulls dominated possession early, Carson Rose continued his strong start to the season by scoring the opening goal to extend his league-leading goal tally.

Rose finished off passes from Drake Glover and Jamie Dorsey by putting the puck past the goalie’s stick to score his ninth goal of the season with 11:07 remaining in the first period, giving the Bulls a 1-0 lead.

Things got chippy later in the period as a fight between Birmingham’s Troy MacTavish and Macon’s Brad Jenion led to Jenion earning a two-minute minor for roughing with 4:52 remaining in the first.

The Mayhem then got their own power play with 1:19 left before the first intermission after Seth Benson received a double-minor for roughing.

However, the Bulls killed off the penalty in the final minutes of the first period and the opening stretch of the second despite facing seven shots on goal to remain up 1-0.

Macon knotted things up at the 3:03 mark in the second period after Nicholas Favaro bounced the puck off the crossbar and into the net for his first goal of the season.

That would be the closest the Mayhem would get to sniffing the lead as the Bulls turned on the jets to score four straight goals, with the first two coming from fresh faces.

A minute and 22 seconds after Favaro’s equalizer, Corson Green opened up his scoring account for the season after he scored off assists from Michael Gillespie and Kyler Matthews to retake a 2-1 lead.

Birmingham couldn’t capitalize off an Amedeo Mastrangeli roughing call at the 7:07 mark, but an Alex Cohen roughing penalty put the hosts back on the power play with 7:24 remaining in the period.

Fifty seconds into the man-advantage, Taylor Brierley scored his first goal of the season thanks to help from Gillespie and Glover, increasing the lead to 3-1.

Just a couple of minutes later, both teams got into a big fight with 5:10 remaining until the second intermission. Two players from each team received fighting majors, but Cohen and Dorsey got administered game misconducts for continuing to fight after the original scuffle.

That proved to be the last of the three fights for the evening, and the Bulls continued to build off their momentum even without the excitement of a skirmish to ignite the home crowd.

After a big outing against Knoxville last time out, Arkhip Ledziankou scored from the blue line with 17:37 remaining in the game thanks to assists from his brother Filimon Ledziankou and Ryan Romeo.

Nikita Kozyrev closed out the scoring for the Bulls after taking advantage of Romeo’s second assist of the night, making the lead 5-1 with 15:52 left in the third.

Matteo Ybarra trimmed the deficit to three with an unassisted goal midway through the third period, silencing the crowd by lobbing the puck into the net from the blue point.

Macon couldn’t get any closer than that as Birmingham took its second-straight win inside the friendly confines in Pelham.

Bulls goaltender Hayden Stewart finished the game with 28 saves against 30 shots faced during his 60 minutes of ice time.

Rose earned the First Star of the night for his opening goal and plus-3 rating, Romeo secured the Second Star with his two assists and Corson Green walked away with the Third Star after scoring his first goal of the year.

After back-to-back home games, Birmingham will now hit the road for three road games in three days over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Bulls will face the Huntsville Havoc on both Thursday, Nov. 28 and Friday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Propst Arena. Then, Birmingham will travel south to face the Pensacola Ice Flyers on Saturday Nov. 30 for a 7:05 p.m. puck drop.

As for when the Bulls will next hit the ice at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena, they will host the Pensacola Ice Flyers on Thursday, Dec. 5 and then have National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation Night on Friday, Dec. 6 against the Evansville Thunderbolts. Both games will start at 7 p.m.

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