Burgess was in a 2-on-1 when he decided to shoot the puck rather than pass it. His shot bounced off the block of Jr. Blues defenseman Kyle Meeh.

Burgess, though, followed the bounce, got the puck back on his stick and whipped off a high shot which behind Springfield goaltender Niko Della Maggorie and into the net at 3:14 into the five-minute, 3-on-3 extra session.

The leading scorer in the Tier II Junior A league was mobbed by his teammates amid a thunderous roar from the announced crowd of 2,242.

“It was a good chip play out of the zone, and I saw him (Meeh) take away the pass, so I figured I’d shoot it,” Burgess said. “It was just a lucky bounce my way.

“It was a pretty surreal feeling to get the game-winner in overtime,” said Burgess, who has 31 goals and 46 assists for 77 points in 48 games.

Many of the bounces during regulation were deflected pucks caused by the teams clogging the passing and shooting lanes. It also was a reason that the game was scoreless through the first two periods and early into the third period.

“There was a lot of jostling for position, there was a lot of not giving up odd-man rushes on both ends,” Ice Dogs head coach Trevor Stewart said. “Both teams had numbers back; it was pretty structured defensively.

“We’re going to need to do a better job of finding ways to produce some offense,” Stewart added.

After 42 minutes, 33 seconds of the game on Friday, the Big Dipper scoreboard said good-bye to one of its zeroes.

Jr. Blues forwards Nathan Vilberg delivered the game’s first goal at 2:34 into the third period, taking Joey Lupa’s feed and flinging a shot from the left point that bounced off the left post and behind Ice Dogs goaltender CJ Boothe.

Ice Dogs center Clay Cross evened the score at 8:29 into the third period with a heads-up play that followed scoring efforts by his linemates Cayden Cahill and Liam Stirtzinger.

Della Maggorie denied Cahill on a rush, and Cahill quickly passed the rebound to Stirtzinger, whose effort was thwarted but kept the puck alive in front of a prone Della Maggorie. Cross pounced on the puck and flipped it in over the Jr. Blues netminder.

“I wasn’t playing that good in the first and second and Stew kind of got me going in the third,’’ Cross said of a few words from Stewart to him.

“I was just trying to follow up the play and crash the net,’’ Cross said of the goal. “I saw Cahill make a nice play to Liam and the goalie made a nice stop. It (puck) was just sitting there waiting for me and I just tried to get it out over the goalie.”

The fans in the Big Dipper rarely saw anyone going in and out the penalty boxes on Friday. The game’s only infractions were a roughing minor assessed to Cross at 6:39 of the second period and a holding penalty for Jr. Blues forward Matt Long at 15:42 of the third period.

“Both teams just kind of played and skated and had good sticks, and kept their sticks down,” Stewart said. “There wasn’t much play at the net, which usually leads to some penalties as you’re jostling for position. So it was a pretty clean game.”

Boothe registered 20 saves for the Ice Dogs, who improved their division and league-leading record to 38-7-3 for 79 points with their fifth win in as many games of this season’s series.

Della Maggorie recorded 35 saves for the Jr. Blues, who with the OT loss, gained a point in the Midwest standings and raised their third-place record to 25-16-6 for 56 points. 

The teams meet again at 7:30 tonight at the Dipper and next weekend at the Nelson Center in Springfield, Illinois.

Contact sports editor Danny Martin at 459-7586. Follow him on Twitter:

@newsminersports.