The Walkerton Hawks picked up their first win in the PJHL Pollock Division Final, after forward Gary Mantz beat out an icing to score the overtime winner in Game 3 over Mount Forest.
The game ending play happened when Walkerton sent the puck down the ice to relieve some pressure with just under eight minutes left in overtime. Mantz, took off and got to the puck, negating the icing and slid it toward the night. The shot found its way into the Patriots' net for the winning goal.
The Hawks were under siege in overtime, having to fend off a power play carried over from the end of the third period, and then two more during overtime.
But the offensive chance wouldn't have happened without the 53 saves from goalie Mathew Donnelly.
Jeremy Davidson, Brendan Welsh and Ryan Shaw also scored for Walkerton with Shaw's coming short handed.
Troy Weber, Blair Butchart and Micahel Stefanelli scored for Mount Forest. Head Coach Trent McClement says it was a tough loss, but he liked the comeback effort his team made to get the game to overtime.
"I like how my team rebounded, it was kind of a night for us like they had in Game 2. We had a lot of chances around the net and things weren't really going in for us early on. But I like how our team rebounded in the 3rd and I thought in overtime we carried the play most of the time."
McClement says going 1 for 7 on the power play didn't help but overall he liked their setup.
"I think our PP was alright tonight, we got a lot of chances, a lot of shots. See the tricky thing about power plays is that all your skill guys are out there, and on nights when it's going the confidence is high, but when you are getting good chances and aren't scoring guys can get their confidence down and I think that happened to us a bit tonight."
Game 4 is Monday in Walkerton at 7:50 p.m.
