The Rochester Jr. Americans kept their season alive with an overtime win over the Maine Nordiques on Friday night.

The expansion team defeated the Nordiques 2-1 in Game 3 of the North American Hockey League East Division semifinals in Rochester, New York.

Clay O’Donnell scored the game-winning goal 4:19 into the first overtime session, with Jacon Roberson setting the goal up.

The game came off a turnover on an offensive chance by the Nordiques.

“We had a chance to score a goal. Evan Orloff fell down and they scored on a 2-on-1,” Maine Nordiques coach Nick Skerlick said. “There was no one around (Orloff) and he blew a tire with a chance to win the game on his stick — it ended up in our net instead.”

Skerlick said the Nordiques had two other chances in overtime, with Jake Bernadet having an opportunity before a turnover. Nick Bernardo’s shot from the point got deflected and just missed the net.

Maine, with the 2-1 lead in the series, will look to close out the best-of-five series on Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Rochester Ice Center in Rochester, New York.

“If we can find a way to win Game 4 tomorrow, this will be a really good learning moment for us if we do have the opportunity to move to the next round,” Skerlick said. “Now it’s go time. They only have two more games to come back in the series instead of three.”

It was a goaltending duel, with Americans goalie Danick Leroux making 26 saves in the victory. However, Skerlick wasn’t pleased with Nordiques’ shot selection on Leroux.

“I think we had 27 shots on net and 24 of them were ground balls to the goalie,” Skerlick said. “We played well defensively, and credit to all 12 forwards that played well defensively because they did. I felt the forwards bought in defensively, but we didn’t have that killer instinct offensively tonight.”

Carter Richardson — making his third start of the series for the Nordiques — stopped 37 shots.

Skerlick said Richardson was fantastic and is likely the starter on Saturday.

Maine went 0-for-2 on the power play, while Rochester went 0-for-3.

Laurent Trepanier, a member of Maine’s fourth line, opened the scoring in the first minute of the third period. It’s his first goal of the postseason.

“The fourth line is being asked to shut down the other team’s top line and scores the goal,” Skerlick said. “That’s when I look at the other nine forwards on the bench and I only felt three of them were ready to go for playoff hockey.”

It was one of only five shots in the third period for the Nordiques.

Rochester evened the game midway through the third period when Tyler Procious found the back of the net, with Matteo Disipio and Massimo Gentile providing the assists.

Nordiques forward Ryan Panico got hurt right before the goal.

“Ryan Panico took a puck to the face and wasn’t able to battle through it,” Skerlick said. “He was bleeding all over the ice and went down, stayed down. We never touched the puck to get possession. So they ended up scoring a goal on that. If it wasn’t for that one incident with the puck hitting Ryan Panico in the face, we are going back home 1-0 winners tonight.”

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Junior hockey: Rochester Jr. Americans force a Game 5 with win over Maine Nordiques