Kingsford senior captain Gavin Moore looks to shoot on Jeffers’ goalie Kasen Helminen during Tuesday’s game in Mountain View Ice Arena. Moore scored in the first period for his team-leading 17th tally of the season. (Ron Deuter photo)

IRON MOUNTAIN – Kingsford, playing much-improved hockey the past couple of weeks, nearly pulled off the upset of the season Tuesday evening at Mountain View Ice Arena. The Flivvers went toe to toe with Jeffers, a top-ranked team in the state, before bowing in overtime, 2-1 in Great Lakes Hockey Conference action.

Jeffers (18-3-0) had easily defeated the Flivvers 5-1 and 8-1 earlier in the season, but the third meeting between the squads turned into a hard-fought battle that required extra time to settle.

The decisive goal came at the 7:41 mark of overtime. The Jets won a faceoff in the Flivvers’ zone, which was flung out to senior Brit Heinonen in the high slot. He immediately snapped off a shot that connected in the top right corner of the net for the game-winner. Heinonen leads the league with 36 goals, which ranks fourth in the entire state.

“That’s a good hockey team,” Flivvers head coach Greg Wadge said. “I didn’t think our first period was good, but the second, third and overtime were really good. We had some quality scoring opportunities that we were not able to cash in on overtime.”

The Flivvers entered OT with a man advantage but couldn’t push one through despite several prime chances.

Junior goalie Nate Scullon stopped 39 shots in the game, while Kingsford fired 23 shots on junior Kasen Helminen.

“That was a really good effort by our guys,” Wadge said. “Scully played well.”

Prior to the overtime, all the scoring occurred in the span of a minute in the first period.

Kingsford scored first, off the stick of senior captain Gavin Moore, who took a pass from junior Will Murvich and buried a power-play tally at 9:11 of the first. The Flivvers were on the power play due to a major boarding penalty, but rather than adding to their lead, a turnover after the goal allowed Jeffers to tie the game quickly.

Junior Brogan Turner went in free on a breakaway and knotted the contest 1-1 at the 10-minute mark of the first. But after that, the Flivvers’ defense locked down Jeffers.

“We ran our normal system, we just backed it out of the zone a little bit,” Wadge said. “Rather than getting guys caught deep against a fast team like that, we kept guys a little higher and actually it worked very well against them. We clogged up the neutral zone a little bit and we had some turnovers so that worked well.”

Tuesday’s contest marked Senior Night for Kingsford, with Jaxon Buckley, Cooper Pigeon, Jack Supanich, Jake Crockford, Evan Moyer and Moore all recognized on the ice before the game.

“All of our seniors are an awesome group of dudes and they’ve done a great job with the underclassmen,” Wadge said. “They are good examples, good role models, really good all year. They will be missed.”

Kingsford (9-12-1) has three games left on the regular season schedule. They head to Rhinelander tonight, Manistique on Feb. 11, and wrap up with a final home game against Calumet on Feb. 13.