The Electric Factory once again ignited as the San Diego Seals took on the Buffalo Bandits in a match with major playoff implications for both teams. Still, the Seals couldn’t pin down the Bandits as they soared back from a four-goal deficit to triumph in overtime, 9-8.

The scoreboard didn’t do the match of 94 shots (50 for the Bandits, 44 for the Seals) justice. If the strain of the first faceoff didn’t tell you it would be a physical game, then the early penalty for holding the stick to the Seals’ leading scorer, Tre Leclaire, did.

“They’re a very physical team, and I think so are we,” said head coach Patrick Merrill. “It kind of put us in some penalty trouble earlier in the game, but I thought we weather the storm really well.”

The first quarter showed just how close the back-to-back ranked teams were. The Bandits bit first one a power play with a goal from forward Tehoka Nanticoke, but less than a minute late, Zach Currier set up Ben McIntosh to fire a shot past Buffalo keeper Matt Vinc to tie the game 1-1.

With 3:21 left on the clock, Captain Wesley Berg sent a cross to McIntosh, who dove from behind the net to sneak a second goal over Vinc’s shoulder.

“Offensively, you play great for a lot of the game, but you can’t sit back and just try to hold on to a lead,” Berg said. “We’ve got to keep scoring and answering.”

The Seals kept the Bandits to one goal in the second quarter, while Berg racked up two goals in the 9th and 3rd minutes to end the half at an advantage, 2-4.

The third quarter was quiet until the clock hit 6:15, when Ari Steenhuis—Seals’ rookie defender who scored his first career goal last weekend against the Saskatchewan Rush—took a breakaway and flew down the field from his defensive post to sling one past Vinc and make it 2-5, Seals.

“Everybody out there, you make mistakes and you make some rookie mistakes,” Berg said. “And I thought [Steenhuis and Marquez White] have played like veterans since they’ve come in.”

The goal from Steenhuis was the jumpstart the Seals needed in the third quarter, and Currier recorded two more goals in the quarter. Origlieri blocked 11 of 12 shots in the fifteen minutes, and Buffalo’s Dhane Smith was the only one to score off a power play. The quarter ended with the Seals up, 3-7.

As has been the case in the Seals’ last three games, it all seemed to crumble in the fourth quarter. After six minutes of a rough game of hot potato, the Bandits’ Josh Byrne scooped up an initial save from Origlieri to find an unassisted goal, trimming the Seals’ lead.

“I didn’t think it was a matter of us running out of gas, or any of those things,” Merrill said. “I think it was just a game of mistakes and we made a few more than [the Bandits] did down the stretch, and they know how to make you pay for those.”

With 7:36 ticking down on the clock, McIntosh decided he wanted some new headgear: McIntosh scored three goals with assists from Berg and Leclaire for a hat trick that doubled the Seals’ lead to 4-8.

Unfortunately, the hat trick would prove to be the last time the Seals could find the back of the net. Buffalo’s Joe Resetartis, Clay Scanlan, Nanticoke and Smith each slipped through the Seals’ defenses, and Smith’s goal in the last minute of the quarter tied the match to send them into overtime.

Under golden goal rules in overtime, it was a matter of who would be first to make the ball meet the net. Despite four saves from Origlieri to keep the Seals alive, it took less than five minutes for the Bandits to steal the win from the Seals’ grasp. Smith put up the game-ending shot to claim victory for the Buffalo team.

“Especially with no timeouts and that you have to draw something up on the fly, we have to find a way to score,” Berg said of the overtime play. “It’s tough when you lose those ones that can go either way, and you just have to find a way to get better during the weekend and finish those games

Hard to see in the stats but easy to see when watching the game, the defense was a force to be reckoned with. Defenders Danny Logan (9 LB). Eli Gobrecht (8 LB), Patrick Shoemay (5 LB) and Graydon Bradley (4 LB) were locking it down in front of Origlieri. Transition players Zach Currier (2 G, 9 LB) and Trent DiCicco (5 LB) also had impressive performances to police the Bandits.

“I think our defense have been playing really well for the last month,” Merrill said. “[Origlieri] was obviously really good too, and some of those younger defense guys have been forced to grow up quite quickly here in this league and handled themselves very, very well.”

Regardless of the somber end to the night, it was still a milestone night for the team. Origlieri secured his 2000th save of the night less than five minutes into the match and now has 2,037 to his name. Berg broke through the 300-goal threshold, with his two goals of the night adding up to 301 for his career.

The Seals are on a bye-week, and next take on the Toronto Rock on Saturday, April 4 at 4 p.m. The loss dropped them to ninth in the standings and out of the playoffs cutoff, but the purple and gold aren’t ready to roll over yet.

“It’s time to put our chips in the middle and go on a run here on the stretch,” Merrill said.