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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

PELHAM – After weeks of not being able to follow up a victory with another, the Birmingham Bulls broke that negative trend thanks to a weekend sweep of the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs.

It wasn’t easy though as the Bulls followed up a 5-3 win on Friday, March 7 with a dramatic 6-5 shootout victory on Saturday, March 8 that saw them come back from three goals down and survive a 12-round shootout in front of their home fans at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena.

It was also a unique weekend for the Birmingham Bulls as they played their annual series as the Cahaba Valley Vipers, donning their green jerseys as part of the temporary rebrand in honor of Cahaba Valley Road, the highway the arena sits just off of.

Taylor Brierley started out the first game of the series right as he scored with 12:48 left in the first period off an assist from Carson Rose to give Birmingham a 1-0 lead at the intermission.

While the Bulls couldn’t capitalize on a double-minor power play, a tripping call on Roanoke with 10 seconds left in the first allowed the hosts to capitalize early in the second period. Rose scored just 29 seconds into the second to take the lead to 2-0.

From there, Birmingham scored two more goals back-to-back as Andrew Bellant took care of an assist from Filimon Lediziankou with 12:04 left in the period and Kolton Olynek followed that up with a goal of his own with 11:47 remaining in the second.

The Bulls killed off two power plays in the second period, but the third power play proved to be the charm for the Rail Yard Dawgs to get on the board. Carson Gallagher scored with 11:57 remaining in the second period to cut the deficit to 4-1.

However, Bellant responded before the end of the period as he and Filimon Ledziankou linked up again to score his second goal of the period and take the lead to 5-1 ahead of the third period.

That made the lead insurmountable as Roanoke scored a pair of goals in the third period, including one with just seven seconds left, but the visitors couldn’t overcome the gap as Birmingham took the victory.

Bellant’s two goals and an assist gave him the First Star while Hayden Stewart earned the Second Star with 45 saves off 48 shots faced and Rose’s goal and an assist secured the Third Star.

In the second game of the series, the Bulls got right to work on the offensive end as they scored just 3:40 into the game. Olynek scored his 15th goal of the season off assists from Connor Scahill and Nikita Kozyrev.

Three minutes later, Drake Glover doubled up the lead with a goal after taking passes from Kyler Matthews and Olynek.

That 2-0 lead held through the first intermission, but a Matthews hooking call with one minute left in the period led to disaster to start the second. The Rail Yard Dawgs’ Brenden Stanko scored just 21 seconds into the second to cut the deficit in half.

That goal snowballed into five-straight Roanoke goals. The tying goal came with 14:33 left in the second period from Mac Jensen before the Rail Yard Dawgs took the lead off a CJ Valerian goal just past the midway mark.

Birmingham couldn’t capitalize on its first power play chance with five minutes left in the second as Roanoke ended the period with a 3-2 lead.

That advantage grew to 5-2 within the first six minutes of the third. Jacob Kelly scored an unassisted goal 1:12 into the final period before Cory Doney took the lead to three goals with 14:28 remaining.

The Bulls needed a big response to overcome the deficit, and they got just that down the stretch.

Arkhip Ledziankou began the comeback with a goal off assists from Scahill and Matt Clark with 11:54 remaining. Birmingham couldn’t cut into the deficit over the next eight minutes, but an interference call on Roanoke opened the door for the hosts to strike.

Rose scored a power play goal thanks to passes from Kozyrev and Bellant to make it a one-goal game with 2:10 remaining. Then, with just 14 seconds left, Rose struck again to tie the game in dramatic fashion at 5-5.

That sent the two teams to overtime, and after a scoreless extra five minutes, a penalty shootout.

Neither team scored in the first three rounds, but after Daniel Chladek gave the Rail Yard Dawgs the advantage, Taylor Brierley came up with a goal in response to extend the shootout.

That then led to seven more rounds without a goal scored by either team to extend the shootout into a marathon 12th round. The Bulls delivered the knockout blow in the 12th round though as Rose fired home the game-winning goal to win the shootout 2-1 and the game 6-5.

Rose got the First Star with his two goals in regulation and penalty shootout goal. Stewart took the Second Star by stopping 23 of the 28 shots he faced, and Scahill’s two assists gave him the Third Star.

Birmingham will be back in action on Thursday, March 13 for the first of back-to-back games against the Huntsville Havoc. Both the Thursday and Friday games will start at 7 p.m. at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena.