The Oil Caps win their first game back after the holidays. The Oil caps picked up a huge 5-3 road win against the Portage Terriers. The scoring was kicked off by Portage giving them the early 1-0 lead. Virden tied the game 1-1 on the power play to keep the game close. Portage also took advantage of a power play to take back the 2-1 lead before the end of the first period. The second period saw an unassisted Virden goal to tie the game back at 2-2. A short time later another Virden goal was scored on the power play to take the lead 3-2. Later in the period Virden scored another power play goal to extend their lead to 4-2 going into the third period. Just over halfway through the third period Portage tried to gain momentum by scoring to cut the Oil Caps lead to 4-3. Late in the period Virden scored an empty net goal to secure their win with a 5-3 score.
The first period kicked off with Portage’s Mack Belinski scoring his 11th of the season at 7:08 to give the Terriers the early 1-0 lead. Virden’s Hunter Cloutier scored his 22nd of the season, a power play goal at 16:12 to tie the game 1-1. However Portage’s Brett Namaka took back the lead as he scored his 14th of the season on the power play at 17:16 to give the Terriers the lead going into the second period.
The second period saw an early goal unassisted by Virden’s Tristan Thompson, his 10th of the season, at 3:18 to tie the game at 2-2. Virden’s Hunter Cloutier scored his second of the game at 4:41 once again on the power play, to give the Oil Caps the 3-2 lead. Hunter Cloutier scored again at 12:00 to get his third Hat Trick of the season and giving the Oil Caps a 4-2 lead headed into the third period.
The third period saw a later goal by Portage’s Riley Bruce his 25th of the season at 13:24 to make the Oil Caps lead just 4-3. However Virden’s Josh Belcher secured the win with his 14th goal of the season on the empty net at 18:29 to have the final score of the game be 5-3 for the Virden Oil Capitals.
Virden’s Ethan Peterson took the win stopping 29 of 32 shots for a save percentage of 90.6%. Portage’s Nathan Moore took the loss stopping 18 of 22 shots he faced for a save percentage of 81.8%.