Syracuse, NY – The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Hershey Bears 2-1 tonight for Rob Zettler's first win as head coach.

Syracuse netminder Riku Helenius stopped 19 or 20 shots. The Crunch penalty kill turned aside all four Bears man-advantages to advance to 40-21-4-5 on the season and 24-10-1-2 away from the War Memorial. With tonight's win the Crunch win the season series against Hershey 4-2-0-0.

JP Cote gave the Crunch a 1-0 lead halfway through the first frame with his third goal of the season. Cote's shot from the top left circle hit the cross bar and trickled over the goal line past Bears netminder Dany Sabourin. Assists went to Philip-Michael Devos and Alex Hutchings.

The Bears evened the score with 55 seconds to play in the second period. Crunch goaltender Helenius made two saves before a rebound found the stick of Joey Crabb who pushed the puck past Helenius.

The Crunch took a 2-1 lead four minutes into the final frame when Ondrej Palat one-timed a feed from behind the net from Tanner Richard. Palat's shot beat Sabourin for his 12^th goal of the season. With an assist on the goal Richard picked up his first professional point.

Crunchables:  Defenseman Luke Witkowski made his professional debut tonight…The Crunch have gone eight games without scoring a power-play goal…Syracuse is 0 for 31 in that span… Syracuse is 32-3-3-2 when scoring the first goal of the game.