Chris Boushy’s breakaway goal at three minutes of overtime gave the Gananoque Islanders a huge 3-2 victory over the Napanee Raiders in a rare Wednesday night contest.

For the third consecutive game, the Raiders were shut down by the opposing goaltender’s brilliant play. Following in Tyler Freeman and Sheldon Calbury’s footsteps, Quinn Cota put up 59 saves on 61 Napanee shots in the Islanders’ first win in 14 games. 

Austin Boulard beat Cota on a shorthanded breakaway late in the first to break open the scoring before Tyson O’Toole tied it early in the second period on a powerplay. Nick Maillet gave Gananoque a lead over a minute into period three before Justynn Steven answered back for Napanee about five-and-a-half minutes later. 

A largely Raider-dominated game didn’t matter much for the Islanders, as Cota kept them in it well into overtime. Boushy would then win it on a long stretch feed from that just managed to stay onside before coming in and firing a shot that managed to find the top corner on Cam Parr over the left shoulder to secure the Islanders’ long awaited victory. The win gave Robb Bowman his first as Islanders head coach following the dismissal of Tom Dickson earlier this week. As for Napanee, the loss marks the first time this season they have lost three games in a row. A standout performance for the Raiders came from Brodie Butt in his return to Napanee after spending the large part of the season with the Wellington Dukes of the OJHL.

Gananoque improves to 10-20-3 on the season, while Napanee falls to 18-9-4. The Raiders don’t have much time to dwell on this loss, as they finish off a rare back-to-back situation in Picton tomorrow against the Pirates.