Staff photo / Brian Yauger Phantoms forward Mikey Burchill attempts to steal the puck in the offensive zone away from Dubuque defenseman Matthew Desiderio during Saturday's game.

YOUNGSTOWN — Sometimes, pucks don’t bounce your way.

A great offensive effort, in which the Youngstown Phantoms nearly doubled the opposition’s shots on goal, went unrewarded for the Phantoms as they fell, 4-0, to Dubuque on Saturday.

While displeased with the loss, Phantoms coach Ryan Ward was happy with the offensive effort.

“I actually thought we played an outstanding game,” the third-year coach said. “I thought we were in the offensive zone for the majority of the night. I thought we played (well), I thought we tracked, I thought we did a ton of good things that we can build on. Just sometimes that’s how it goes. But I thought our guys worked extremely hard and I thought we played a pretty good game, all things considered.”

The shot discrepancy started from the opening period, where Youngstown outshot the Fighting Saints 10-4 in the first.

Neither team found the back of the net in the first frame, however.

Dubuque netminder Liam Beerman pitched his first USHL shutout, stopping 28 shots that came his way, and stifling an aggressive Phantoms offensive rush.

“We were in the offensive zone for three minutes (straight) in the third,” Ward said. “Credit to their goalie. I thought he played really well. For us, I thought we were good for all three periods, outside of a little lull in the second, but I thought we played really well.”

Ritter Coombs broke the deadlock in favor of Dubuque, scoring his seventh goal of the season early in the middle frame.

Cooper Dennis, Heikki Ruohonen and Gavin Cornforth’s empty-netter rounded out Dubuque’s scoring on Saturday.

The Phantoms (20-14-0-1 41 points) get back at it at home on Friday, for the first of a two-game series with the US National Team Development Program.

After a brutal post-Christmas stretch of games against Muskegon and Dubuque, the Phantoms are taking inventory of where they’re at currently.

Arguably the toughest stretch of the season is behind them and the team is playing with a relatively full deck.

Ward is optimistic and hopes the team uses this as fuel moving forward.

“We just want to be playing our best hockey at the end of the year. It’s good for us to go through these tough stretches and figure out where you stand and you know what you’re worth,” Ward said. “For us, I’m excited. We’re starting to get healthy and hopefully we can get some consistency in our lineup. I think for the future here, it will be good. We just need to keep it going.”