WEST SPRINGFIELD – Taconic’s Eric Harrington scored in overtime to sink the Amherst hockey team, 3-2, in the PVIAC Class B semifinal round at Olympia Ice Arena on Thursday.

Harrington unleashed a slap shot from the top of the slot and the puck whizzed past Hurricanes goalie Spencer McDonald as the No. 4 Thunder (5-6-2) pulled off the upset against top-seeded Amherst with Harrington’s sudden-death strike about a minute into the extra period.

Harrington finished the game with three points (two goals, assist), including one of Taconic’s pair of first period goals. The Hurricanes trailed by two after 15 minutes and were forced to play catch-up the rest of the night.

“We didn’t show up,” Amherst head coach Mike Rousseau said about his team’s first period performance. “Horrible start, absolutely god-awful, next thing [you know] you’re down. I don’t care what team’s records, you give a playoff hockey team a 2-0 lead, that’s a tough hill to climb. We played that slowly, that’s what happened. We didn’t show up to play in the first period. Got better as the game went on.”

Harrington scored 3 minutes, 29 seconds after opening puck drop, then Owen Odermatt doubled Taconic’s lead with 12 seconds left in the period.

Brach Applegate had both of Amherst’s goals, the first coming at the 10 minute mark of the second. Applegate ripped a shot to the top-left corner past Thunder goalie Hunter Shepardson on a nice individual effort goal.

Then in the third, Applegate swept in the loose puck after Nathaniel Ziomek’s initial shot popped off Shepardson’s chest and into Taconic’s crease. Applegate’s second of the game came at 12:29 of the third, setting up the eight-minute overtime period that lasted just 63 seconds.

“[Applegate] showed up and that’s what a senior does,” Rousseau said. “A lot of times [Applegate] does some interesting things, [Thursday], something was on fire in him and that’s what happens when you’re a senior. The tears that are coming out of him now, I haven’t seen in four years, but sometimes you have to look back and say if we did a little bit of this more, a little bit of that more, we wouldn’t be in this position. His game was spot-on, spot-on tonight. He gave us a chance to win.”

The Hurricanes had previously beaten the Thunder twice during the season, but beating a team three times during the same season is always a challenge, as Amherst found out on Thursday.

“The two teams know each other and so it’s that third time you’re trying to go to the well one too many times,” Rousseau said. “We didn’t go to the well at all in the first period.”

The Hurricanes live to fight another day though as they’ve qualified for the MIAA Div. 3 state tournament with its 11-6-1 record. The seeds and brackets will be released on Saturday.

“What we did this season is special,” Rousseau said. “I think that’s the thing that hurt us. I would have been pleased with being .500 this season. We finished 10-1-1 [in the Fay-Wright League] and league champions, so we got to keep that in mind, keep that perspective and this was playoff hockey.”

Saturday’s Class B final is now set as Taconic and Agawam will battle for the title.