The Ice Bulls traveled to Atlanta the last weekend in November hoping to finish out the semester with a solid showing at the Georgia Tech Holiday Tournament, but instead experienced a disastrous weekend, dropping three straight games.

USF failed to get the start they'd hoped for Friday night and things snowballed from there.

Despite battling back from a 6-0 deficit, South Floirda lost their opening game to the Richmond Spiders 7-5.

The Ice Bulls fell behind early on three Richmond power play goals, and the Spiders rode the momentum, building a 6-0 lead midway through the second period.

A big hit by Kyle Baran late in the second seemed to wake the Bulls from their slumber. Adam Kaye got USF on the board, scoring with 2:37 left in the period. Connor Lyons got a goal less than a minute later and the Bulls went into the third period down 6-2.

The Ice Bulls came out with intensity in the third. Their hard work paid off with 8:15 left when Jared Vidovic scored twice within two minutes to pull USF within two.

Two penalties, including a bench minor for yelling at the referee called on USF’s team photographer, who was not on the bench, slowed the Ice Bull momentum, and gave Richmond a two man advantage for two minutes.

After successfully killing the penalties, the Ice Bulls cut the Richmond lead to one when Kyle Haverstrom scored with only 1:24 left in the game.

The Bulls could not get the tying goal, despite pulling the goalie for the extra attacker, and Richmond added an empty net goal with 37 seconds remaining to seal the 7-5 win.

“We came back and that’s good,” said Lyons after the game. “But the bottom line is it’s still a loss.”

On Saturday afternoon, USF was not able to bounce back from the disappointing loss, and clearly missed their number two and four scorers, who were not able to make the trip. The Ice Bulls came out flat against a determined Middle Tennessee State team and fell behind 1-0 when MTSU scored on a short handed breakaway.

South Florida looked better in the second and it appeared for a while that they would take control of the game.

Drew Dinzik scored a short-handed goal 3:45 into the period and Lyons banged one home two minutes later to put the Bulls up 2-1. Ricky Nelson scored 31 seconds later and gave USF a two goal advantage.

But MTSU was not ready to concede the game. They scored just over one minute later to pull within one and tied the game with 5:48 left in the second.

The Ice Bulls took the lead again at 15:31 in the third on an Alex Ford goal, but seemed to laps into a conservative and tentative game.

MTSU controlled the games momentum, outworking the Bulls, and got the payoff when they tied it up again half way through the period.

The Blue Raiders continued to take it to USF throughout the last period and scored the winning goal with only 50 seconds left in the game.

MTSU went on to win the tournament, defeating Richmond 7-6 on Sunday morning.

As for the Bulls, they seemed to have no fight left when they faced The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Sunday morning.

Kaye scored the Ice Bulls lone goal 4:57 into the game.

But from there, the lackluster Bulls were completely outplayed. Tech tied it up early in the second and then dominated the Bulls through the final period, scoring three goals, and earning a 4-1 victory.

“I don’t have anything to say, that hasn't been said already” Bulls coach Jay Jodoin said after the Tech game.

-Michael Maharrey