The Warwick Vets boys’ hockey team got two goals from D.J. Kowalik to force overtime against Johnston/North Providence Co-op on Friday night, but the Panthers’ Justin Harvey buried a goal at 1:01 of the extra period to lift JNP to a 3-2 victory.

The tight-checking game featured just 30 shots-on-net between two teams that were compatible 5-on-5.

But Greg Fontaine picked up a tripping penalty towards the end of regulation for Vets, allowing JNP to pin the ’Canes in their own zone for the first minute of overtime.

Although the game-winner didn’t go down as a power play goal, the pressure from the man advantage continued after Fontaine exited the penalty box.

Ultimately, a shot from Justin Gomes off the left pad of Josh Belleville ricocheted to the stick of Harvey, who fired a shot into a vacant cage to put the game away.

“It’s huge, we needed two points to stay in third place,” JNP head coach David Centracchio said of his team’s win. “That’s where we want to be, and it seems like if we play well, that’s where we’ll end up. We played well tonight.”

JNP netminder David Kelly came up big early and often in the first period, flashing the right pad to stop a Kowalik shot before standing tall on a rebound chance, as well.

The Panthers’ offense had better luck down at the other end a few minutes later.

After Collin Csoszor was assessed a roughing penalty, Jacob McCollough found the back of the net on the power play, as a shot through traffic from the right point found the back of the cage to make it 1-0.

Vets had a heightened sense of urgency after falling down 1-0, but couldn’t solve Kelly.

With 4:20 left in the first, Csoszor had a point-blank chance, but fired it north of the crossbar.

And in the final minute, Kelly made his best save of the game, stopping a Csoszor shot with his left pad, and diving to make a glove save to deny a rebound chance.

Kelly also got some help from the iron around him.

Four minutes into the second period, Csoszor had another good look, but missed the target by a couple of inches, ringing a missile off the post.

That proved to be a costly miss at the time, because JNP’s Michael Flori scored on a breakaway chance at 8:33 of the second, giving the Panthers a 2-0 lead.

But Kowalik would provide the lift that Vets needed heading into the locker room.

With 16.6 seconds left in the second, Kowalik cut the ’Canes’ deficit in half, 2-1, when he went coast to coast before backhanding a shot by Kelly.

And in the third, Kowalik continued to come up big for Vets.

At 9:21 of the final period, Kowalik cut across the middle in the attacking zone, showing patience and ripping a shot by Kelly to tie the game at 2.

Kowalik, who was moved back to defense to provide some stability on the back end for Vets, has done it all for his team this season. That was certainly the case on Friday.

“This is his first year playing defense, him and Csoszor,” Vets head coach Michael Boyajian said. “Kowalik and Csoszor were our two top scorers last year, but we needed more of an offensive punch back there. Kowalik’s been great, night after night, I can’t say anything bad about him.”

But JNP would ultimately prevail, with the penalty leading to the Harvey goal in overtime.

The game was Vets’ first in a couple of weeks due to postponements due to weather.

Boyajian could tell that his team was a bit sluggish due to the hiatus.

“The first two periods were shaking the rust off,” Boyajian said. “You could see it, they hadn’t played a game in a while. They looked a little shell-shocked. But in the third period, they finally settled down and got back to their game. Unfortunately, the penalty killed us at the end.”

Vets would bounce back on Saturday night, defeating Woonsocket/Scituate Co-op by a score of 7-4 to improve to 5-6 in Division III play.

The ’Canes were set to play Mt. Hope on Monday morning, but results were unavailable at press time.

Vets will travel to Adelard Arena to play Ponaganset at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night.