by Mark McKenzie

JAMESTOWN – Jamestown and Mandan battled in West Region hockey on Tuesday night in Jamestown’s final home game of the season at Wilson Arena and for the second time this season the final score was 5-4, but this time, the Braves got redemption and skated away with the victory.

The Jays played from behind all night long and nearly rallied from a 4-1 deficit thanks to a pair of third period power play goals.

Junior Bennet Goehner ripped home his 10th of the season and junior John Belzer blasted home his sixth of the season to make it a 4-3 game with around 12 minutes remaining.

Junior Kaleb Ulberg buried a power play goal at the 10:48 mark to give the Braves some breathing room. Jamestown pulled the goalie for an extra skater and senior Vaughn Romsdal knocked in his seventh of the season to draw the Jays to within one with 1:08 left in regulation.

Jamestown buzzed the rest of the game but was unable to get the equalizer.

Senior Jackson Maddock smacked in his team leading 16th of the season in period one for the Jays first tally of the game.

The Blue Jays outshot the Braves 38-29 with Jamestown goalie Leif Hanson making 24 saves. Mandan junior goalie Cooper Anderson was outstanding and finished with 34 saves.

Mandan strengthened its grip on finishing at least fourth in the West Region standings with the postseason WDA tournament coming up next week in Minot.

Jamestown is looking to hang onto the fifth seed and a win at Bismarck on Friday night would help that cause as the Jays will close out the regular season against the Demons.