A valiant back-and-forth effort did not go the Sarnia Sting's way Saturday.
Arthur Kaliyev scored two goals, including the overtime winner for the Hamilton Bulldogs, in their 4-3 win over the Sting at FirstOntario Centre.
Sarnia is in third place in the OHL West Division with 42 points.
The two sides exchanged goals in the latter half of the first period. Mitch Eliot put the Sting on the board first with his ninth goal of the season. The Bulldogs tied the game soon after Nicolas Mattinen scored his 13th goal of the year.
Hamilton added two goals to its lead in the middle frame. Kaliyev scored the go-ahead goal at 8:49 for his first score of the contest, then Zachary Jackson made it a 3-1 Hamilton lead 57 seconds later. Sarnia responded before the second intermission with a goal of its own, Jamieson Rees' seventh of the year.
The game was tied in the final period at three-all thanks to a power-play goal from Sean Josling. It remained tied until exactly a minute into the overtime frame, when Kaliyev netted the winner.
Cameron Lamour had 29 saves in goal for the Sting. Zachary Roy stopped 20 shots for Hamilton.
The Sting were trailing 3-1 midway through the second period.
Sarnia associate coach Brad Staubitz blamed the slow start , in part, on "bus legs". "It took awhile for our guys to get engaged but by the third we were playing a good game and started to dominate but again a tough overtime loss but it's nice to get a point.
He added, "If we can play tomorrow (Sunday) like we did in the third period hopefully we'll have a better outcome."
Sarnia travels to Erie Sunday afternoon to take on the Otters. The pregame show starts at 3:35 on 103.9 FM - 1070 AM CHOK.