The Wellington Dukes clinched a big overtime win on Sunday afternoon at Lehigh Arena.
Will Mitchell scored the winner as the Dukes edged the Aurora Tigers 6-5 in double overtime.
Wellington took early command, leading 3-1 after 20 minutes on goals from Landon Marleau and one from Sacha Trudel.
The Tigers pulled even with two in the second through Javian Nei and Cole Crawford to set up a tight finish.
Liam Campbell got Wellington back ahead again just 1:18 into the third, flipping the puck to himself and beating the Tigers defence inside to score on Matthew Humphries, but Aurora had answers.
Crawford buried his second of the game on a two-on-one rush and Cayden Smith put one home to lift the Tigers into their first lead of the game.
Wellington was not about to leave things the way they stood and leading scorer Zack Carrier came up big for his team with a powerplay. equalizer with only three minutes and change left in regulation to force bonus hockey.
Mitchell ended it 1:15 into double overtime, streaking down the left wing and beating Humphries through the legs for the extra point.
The Dukes outshot Aurora 47-39 in the win, putting them for the moment into a 6th place tie in the East Conference with the St. Michael’s Buzzers.
Royden Smith made 34 saves for the victory.
The win improves the Dukes to 13-11-2-4 on the season ahead of a road trip to North York at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
