Captain Troy Kliever scored the game winner 17 seconds into overtime to lift the Flyers to a 5-4 victory over the defending league champion Portage Terriers. Seth Ronsberg scored two goals in the final four minutes of the third to erase the Terriers lead and force the extra frame.

With the Flyers wearing pink jerseys to raise awareness for breast cancer they wanted to put on a good show in front of their best crowd of the year and keep the momentum going from their 5-1 win over the Winnipeg Saints this past Tuesday.

The Flyers got into penalty trouble early and the Terriers took advantage as they scored twice on the man-advantage before the period was 13 minutes old. Shael Hechter would cut the Terriers lead in half at 15:33 when Troy Kliever got the puck out his zone and Michael Wilgosh took it down the left wing side, chipped it past a defender and entered the zone. He then lost the puck for a moment and that is when Hechter swooped in a fired a wrister high glove side to score his third of the season. The visitors would bust the Flyers bubble and score again under three minutes later and take a 3-1 lead into the first intermission.

The second period was a bit of a sluggish one for the home side. The Terriers took a 4-1 lead just over half way through the period and the defending champs looked to be on their way to another victory. Winkler managed only six shots in the second but one of them counted. Kyle Wells got his team a little closer exactly one minute later with a powerplay goal when he tipped in the Brock Genyk shot and the Flyers trailed 4-2 heading in the third.

The Flyers had a number of chances to get back into the game in the third but the Terriers did a good job of trying to hold on to their two goal lead. Its was then that the leading rookie point getter in the league went to work. At the 16:09 mark of the third Kliever and Michael Wilgosh worked the puck up high on the powerplay before Wilgosh found Seth Ronsberg in the left slot who fired a perfect shot top corner to get the Flyers to within one. That goal seemed to give new life to the team and to the fans. Head Coach Mark Thiessen called a time out to rest the top line and that really seemed to pay off. With 2:01 left to play Ronsberg did it again. He had the puck up near the blue line and just threw it towards the goal and it found its way through the crowd and to the back of the net and the game was all tied up at four.

Winkler held on for the final two minutes and were able to force overtime for the first time this season.

Once the overtime period began it didn’t take long for the Flyers to put on the pressure. Right off the opening face off they carried the puck in the Terriers zone and Ronsberg found Captain Troy Kliever up high at the point and with Jordan Peters creating a perfect screen in front, Kliever’s shot lit the lamp and raised the 673 Flyer fans to their feet.

Peter Alexander made 31 saves as the Terriers outshot the Flyers 35-31.

Ronsberg, who was named runner-up for the Rookie of the Month award had 2 goals and a helper in the game. Kliever also had a goal and two assists while Michael Wilgosh had two helpers.

After snapping their four game losing streak in their win over the Saints on Tuesday, the Flyers will now look for their third win in a row on Sunday when they host the Winnipeg South Blues on Sunday. The Flyers, with their 4-5 record are just a point behind the Blues for second place in the Addison Division and three behind the division leading Saints. If you can’t make it to the Winkler Recreation Complex on Sunday night you can tune in to 1570 CKMW as their pregame show begins at 7:25pm.

Remember you still have an opportunity to purchase the game worn autographed pink jerseys that the Flyers wore tonight by clicking on the link on the home page of winklerflyers.com.