However, the Wolverines fought back from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to force overtime, where Pioneers winger Brett Hauswirth buried his opportunity to be the hero for the second straight night, lifting Portage Lake to a 4-3 win and a berth in the championship game on Sunday afternoon.

Hauswirth, who also scored the game-winning overtime goal for the Pioneers Friday night in a 7-6 thriller over the Mosinee Papermakers, batted his own rebound past a sprawled Wolverines goaltender Tyler Hubbard 4:18 into the extra session. He credited his linemates, Spencer Donnelly and Anthony Harris, for helping create time and space for him to find success.

“I mean, I don’t know, (I) just go out there and try and work hard, have good linemates, and good defense,” said Hauswirth. “We are four lines deep. It’s awesome all game, so that’s our kind of our thing.”

The trio has grown together since adding Anthony Harris on a consistent basis, and Hauswirth feels that the three of them work well together.

Portage Lake celebrates an overtime goal from Brett Hauswirth during a game Friday against Mosinee in the GLHL Tournament at the Calumet Colosseum. (Photo courtesy of Matt Roberts)

“We’ve just got three guys that can skate fast, I guess,” Hauswirth said. “(We) work hard. Spencer and Anthony work so hard. Spencer is the first man in on every puck. It’s so awesome to have linemates like that. They go do all kinds of dirty work in the corners. Everybody takes their turn.”

Hauswirth and Donnelly connected on Friday night for Hauswirth’s game-winner against Mosinee just eight seconds into overtime.

“We play together a lot. Spencer and I play together probably four days a week. Anthony plays with us another couple of days too. So, there’s a lot of chemistry and getting used to each other. It’s awesome.”

The Pioneers earned the right to play only one game on Saturday by cruising to a 10-2 victory over the Marquette Mutineers on Friday morning and following that up with the overtime win over the Papermakers late Friday night. The Wolverines, on the other hand, lost their opening game on Friday against the Eagle River Falcons, 4-2, and then had to defeat the De Pere Deacons 5-4 in overtime Saturday morning and the Falcons, 6-2, in the afternoon to get to the semifinal game in the evening.

Wolverines captain Logan Rastello felt that just getting to the semifinals showed a lot about the makeup of his team.

“To start the weekend, we dug ourselves a hole, and we knew we had to play three games to get to the semifinals,” he said. “It just shows the kind of heart and dig our team has. We wanted to win this. We want to win every game. We want to win every shift. It shows how deep we dug to play that team.

“There’s no excuses. I’m not going to say we’re tired, but I wish it was our first game of the weekend. I think we would have beaten them.”

The two teams played to a 0-0 tie after 20 minutes of play as the Wolverines looked sharp early in the period and again late in the period. The middle of the frame belonged to the Pioneers, who fired multiple pucks at Hubbard, but could not solve him with any of their quality scoring chances.

That all changed on a lengthy pass from Dawson McKay to Nick Harris early in the second. McKay bounced a pass behind Harris and off the boards. The puck caromed right into Harris’ skating path. He picked it up and rifled a wrist shot that beat Hubbard at 5:18.

From there, the Pioneers poured the pressure on and were rewarded with a second goal just 1:06 later when co-captain Charlie Turner got the puck in the high slot and fired a shot that winger Jonathan Bostwick tipped past Hubbard.

Down 2-0, the Wolverines had to dig deep. It took nearly the entire rest of the period, but Rastello pulled Calumet within one with just 24 seconds left in the frame, beating Marcus Gloss with a quick shot off a feed from defenseman Jimmy Brey.

“(We needed to) just start with one,” Rastello said. “We played Gloss two or three times. You just have to get that first one on him, which we’ve had a hard time getting the first one on the board. Once you get it, just…you can see with the 18 guys we got in our room, they all want to play for each other. They all want to win and whatever effort it takes out there.”

Rastello admits that while he was happy he scored, he was even happier he simply took care of the shot.

“I knew the net was open, but I’m just happy I hit the net,” he said. “I was shooting as quick as I could.”

Scoring that goal set the Wolverines up for a strong start to the third period, and they got what they were looking for just 53 seconds in when alternate captain Eric Bausano evened things.

Hauswirth said that the Pioneers bench regrouped after Bausano’s goal.

“We said, ‘It’s not over. We’re tied now. Let’s just go, let’s go get one and try and get back to where we were before,” he said.

The tie proved very short-lived, as Portage Lake regained the lead when Anthony Harris buried a rebound off a shot from Donnelly at 1:46.

The Wolverines refused to cave after the third Pioneers goal, and they were rewarded for their efforts at 9:08 when alternate captain Matthew Yeo buried a shot from the slot to even things at 3-3.

Rastello had a golden opportunity to give the Wolverines the lead during a power play shortly after Yeo tied the game, but his wrister from the slot was kicked away by Gloss.

Two minutes later, Turner carried the puck into the Calumet zone and then dropped it for co-captain Cody Sivonen, who split the two Wolverines defenders and attacked the net, but his scoring chance was stopped by Hubbard.

Calumet had the best look of either team in the game’s final minute and a half when he fired a long wrister that Gloss could not corral with his glove, but no one from the Wolverines could get to the net to get to the rebound.

Hubbard made 35 saves for the Wolverines in the loss. Gloss made 30 saves to earn the win for the Pioneers.

Editor’s note: With a 1 p.m. start time Sunday, our coverage of the GLHL Championship will run Tuesday.