Momentum swung back and forth Friday night in Norfolk, Va., but by the end of the game, the Norfolk Admirals came out on top with a 3-2 overtime victory.

“It was a tough loss. We had a 2-0 lead and we couldn’t hang on,” Portland Pirates head coach Ray Edwards said. “We didn’t play particularly well to be honest. I thought we were only good for 20 minutes of the game and we didn’t have enough players playing tonight. We had a lot of passengers in the game tonight.”

After Norfolk dominated the play in the first period, the Pirates returned the favor, outshooting the Admirals 11-6 in the period and getting on the scoreboard first. Jordan Martinook beat Admirals goaltender John Gibson for his third goal of the season. Brandon McMillan was also given credit with an assist, along with Tobias Reider, who has been known to put the puck in the net this season, picked up his helper, too.

Portland continued to build the momentum in the second period when Ethan Werek scored his goal of the season off a turnover at the15:48 mark. Kyle Hagel knotted his fourth assist of the season.

“The second period was our best period, but we only had 20 minutes. We didn’t play 60 minutes,” Edwards said. “We didn’t like our first period so our guys adjusted and played a really good second period and got a couple big goals from our depth (players) in the line-up.”

Norfolk responded just before the teams went to the dressing room when John Kurtz scored with 20 seconds left in the period. The goal came 12 seconds after the Pirates were able to kill off a Brandon Gormley hooking penalty.

“We killed off two (penalty kills) and we let in a shot from the corner. It’s a tough one to give up with (20) seconds left,” Edwards said.

Defenseman Alex Grant would knot the game up at two with his sixth goal of the year at the 4:44 mark of the final period. The goal was set up by Steven Whitney and Garnet Exelby.

It was another goal that was scored after the Pirates killed off a penalty.

Rickard Rakell, who was recently sent down to Norfolk by the Anaheim Ducks, notched the game winner on a power play with 36 seconds remaining in overtime. Alex Grant and Kevin Gagne set the goal up.

The Admirals went 1 of 4 on the power play, while the Pirates had no goals on four chances.

“I told our group tonight we got to be motivated tomorrow because we didn’t play hard tonight,” Edwards said. “I hope we are a lot better than we were tonight.”

It was the first game all season the Norfolk Admirals outshot an opponent. They had 33 shots compared to the Pirates’ 26.

John Gibson picked up his seventh win on the season, stopping 24 shots while Mark Visentin made 31 saves for Portland.

The two teams meet again tonight at the Norfolk Scope for a 7:15 p.m. puck drop.