One day after the Portland Pirates won their first road game of the season, they’d give up a short-handed goal midway into the third period as the Hershey Bears prevailed 3-2 in front of a 10,727 at the Giant Center on Sunday afternoon.

Portland held a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes of play for only the second time on the road this season, but couldn’t covert that into a win as the Bears tied the game early in the third period.

At 5:52, Andrew Gordon fired a bullet between the legs of Pirates’ goalie Jhonas Enroth as the Bears tied game at 2-2.

Mathieu Perreault was called for a double minor midway into the third period, giving the Pirates an opportunity to regain the lead, after his stick hit Pirates’ defenseman Mike Weber in the mouth, drawing blood.

Instead, it was the Bears who grabbed the lead at 12:35 of the period when Steve Pinizzotto slipped a shot by Enroth, who attempted to reach for the puck as it trickled across the line.

Portland down 1-0 after the first period, tied the game at 1-1 when Jeff Cowan scored his second goal in as many days, beating Bears’ goaltender Jason Bacashihua just 2:06 into the second period.

Just 28 seconds later, the Pirates took their only lead of the night when Phillip Gogulla scored his first career AHL goal at 2:34 of the period.

Jhonas Enroth remains winless of the road, making 32 saves in the loss included stopping Darren Reid’s penalty shot in the third period. Jason Bacashihua stopped 21 saves, improving to 2-0-0 on the season.

The Pirates finished their five game road trip with a 1-4-0 record, as they now head back to the Civic Center for games next weekend against Lowell and Bridgeport.

NOTES: The Pirates were without Marc-Andre Gragnani for a second straight game with an injury. Portland was also missing Dennis Persson and Brad Larsen, who were injured before the road trip to Virginia on Friday. Cody McCormick served his third game of his five game suspension.