With a playoff berth secured the Willmar WarHawks still have seeding to consider. On Sunday the team took a step towards securing the third seed in the NA3HL West Division with a come-from-behind overtime victory in New Ulm 4-3.
Currently in third place with 36 points, Willmar (18-17-0-0) are six points in front of fourth place Alexandria Blizzard. As things stand the WarHawks would meet the Granite City Lumberjacks while Alexandria would face the division leading North Iowa Bulls.
The night on the road started well for the visitors when Dylan Gajewski scored on the powerplay at 15:47 of the opening period. The lead wouldn’t last long though as the Steel scored less than a minute later.
Willmar ran into some hard luck in the second frame as New Ulm would score a shorthanded goal and later on the powerplay to take a 3-1 advantage into the third.
An inspired group took the ice in the third and were quickly rewarded when Lewis Rowan scored his 13th of the season at :33 of the period. Tanner Hallett would tie the game 3-3 less than two minutes later, but neither team could find a game winner in regulation.
That set the stage for the overtime heroics of Gajewski who scored his 12th goal of the season and fifth game winning goal. Jeremiah Konkel and Ben Johnson assisted on the three-on-three OT winner.
“Big third period comeback for us tonight,
said coach Kirk Olimb after the game. “Wasn’t always pretty but we got it done!”
Will Pinney made 22 saves in net for the WarHawks to win his seventh game.
“Couple beautiful shots by Gajewski, solid play in net by Pinney. Fun to get an OT win.”
