After a disappointing loss in Ottawa on Friday night, the Windsor Spitfires picked up a win in Belleville on Saturday, beating the Bulls 5-4 in overtime.

It was a battle of two teams going in opposite directions as the Bulls are in a rebuild mode following the loss of several key players from last season. That didn’t stop the Bulls from coming out strong, though. They played a toe-to-toe game against the Spits in the opening few minutes before falling behind. At the 5:32 mark, Justin Shugg put in his first of the game past goaltender Philipp Grabaur, giving Windsor the 1-0 lead. It seemed to deflate the Bulls a bit and the Spits took advantage. They quickly gained control of the shot-clock and didn’t look back. While on the power-play late in the period, Greg Nemisz scored his sixth of the season to make it 2-0. Adam Henrique and Ryan Ellis got the assists. It was 2-0 Windsor after one while the shots were 22-3 for the Spits.

Windsor didn’t let up to start the second, either. Less than a minute in, Eric Wellwood got his second of the season with Austin Watson and Ellis drawing assists to make it 3-0 Windsor. The tides would start to change, though, when Belleville found themselves on a power-play following a bit of a scrum. Adam Payerl scored at 3:59 to make it a 3-1 game. A minute later, though, Henrique would restore the three-goal lead, with the assists going to Nemisz and Jesse Blacker. A string of Windsor penalties that followed would prove costly, though. At 14:37, Matthew Tipoff scored on the power-play to cut the lead to 4-2. That was followed less than 40-seconds later by Stephen Silas with his first of the game, also on the power-play, reducing the lead to one. That’s how the period ended, with Windsor leading 4-3. Shots on net in the period were 17-8 for the Spitfires.

The third period saw the Bulls pressing with the Spitfires trying to hold onto the lead. It worked for the most part, until Silas had his way late. At 15:57, Silas put one past goaltender Michael Nishi to tie it up at four. We were headed for over-time.

At the 1:31 mark, Mark Cundari dug the puck out of the corner, went around a defenceman, slid the puck past Grubauer to Shugg, who found the open net to give Windsor the 5-4 win in over-time. The final shot totals were 54-17 Windsor.

The Spitfires now head up to Kingston for a Sunday afternoon contest to wrap up the road trip. Game time is 2 p.m.