It was quite the day for the Hendricken Hawks on Saturday.

Just hours after the football team clinched its sixth straight title, the hockey team traveled to Mount Saint Charles to start its season, where it would erase a two-goal deficit within the final two minutes of regulation to send the game to overtime.

Hendricken would carry its momentum into the extra frame, with junior forward Pat Creamer finishing off a rebound on a shot from Brandon Waterman at 4:01 of overtime to complete the comeback.

Creamer’s game-winner was his second goal of the opener, as he put together a four-point night.

“Reilly [Miller] just chipped it up to Waterman and he took a good shot off the far pad, just like we do in practice, and I tapped it in,” Creamer said of the clincher.

Creamer would open and close the scoring.

At 2:25 of the first period, Waterman slipped a pass out to Creamer in the high slot, who turned around and fired a wrist shot that made its way through the body of Mount goaltender Devon Joseph to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.

The lead didn’t last long, though, as Mount converted on a pair of Hendricken penalties within three minutes of each other.

At 2:58 of the first, Miller went off for cross-checking. Just over a minute into the man advantage, Daniel Allen cleaned up a rebound off of a point shot to tie the game at 1.

One minute, 13 seconds later, the Hawks found themselves a man down again after being assessed a too many men penalty.

Less than a minute into that power play, Allen made a nice play at his attacking blue line to slip past a defender, creating a two-on-one with Tyler Rudek. This time, Allen distributed the puck, setting up Rudek for his first goal of the season to push Mount ahead, 2-1.

That’s how the two teams went into the first intermission, but Hendricken would capitalize on a power play chance early in the second period.

After Mount defenseman Jack Boisvert was sent to the box for slashing, Miller took a pass from Creamer out at the point and wristed a shot through traffic that beat Joseph to the blocker side to even the score at 2.

Hendricken’s top line of Creamer, Waterman and Miller scored all five goals for the Hawks on Saturday, and with a largely inexperienced roster, Hendricken head coach Jim Creamer will lean on that trio to log a lot of minutes and produce frequently.

“We’re going to lean on them a lot,” Hendricken head coach Jim Creamer said of his top line. “It’s a young group, kids who haven’t played a lot. But the guys who have played, played a lot for us tonight and did a great job.”

“We have two seniors [Miller and Waterman] who have been playing for a long time, and I’ve been playing for three years, so we know what to do,” Pat Creamer said.

While the score was knotted at 2, Hawks’ netminder Wyatt Alberigo came up big with a glove save through traffic to keep Mount at bay. Hendricken turned the puck over quite a bit, particularly in the first and second periods, and Alberigo was there to bail his team out time and time again.

After a pair of goalies graduated from last year’s team, two current seniors, one being Alberigo, are ready to step up.

“We have two seniors, Wyatt and Joe Palmer, who have sat for three years,” Jim Creamer said. “But this is their time and I have confidence in both of them. They’re both outstanding.”

Alberigo made 32 saves in the game, but couldn’t stop Brian Simpson on a breakaway late in the second period, which gave Mount a 3-2 lead at the end of two periods.

Neither team had many chances in the early stages of the third period, but Jacob Glod was able to dance around a defender and bury a breakaway shot by Alberigo with just two minutes, 30 seconds remaining in the game.

Trailing 4-2, Hendricken’s top line went to work.

Less than a minute later, Waterman broke down the left side and made his way to the net. He drew a penalty on the play, but as he was falling down to the ice he slipped the puck five-hole past Joseph to cut Hendricken’s deficit to 4-3 with one minute, 41 seconds left.

With 39 seconds left, Hendricken found the equalizer. Creamer made a feed out to Miller from behind the net, who was posted up in the slot to the right of the goal. Miller corralled the puck and snuck a shot five-hole past Joseph to tie the game at 4.

Just 40 seconds into overtime, Waterman nearly had the game-winner when he redirected a Miller shot off the crossbar.

However, Waterman would have a hand in the final goal over three minutes later when his low shot found the pad of Joseph and then the stick of Pat Creamer, who put the game away.

For a coach, there’s no better way to start the year. The team had to endure some ups and downs, but still prevailed.

“I couldn’t have drawn it up any better,” Jim Creamer said. “It was a great way to start the year.”

The Hawks will be back in action on Saturday night when they host Smithfield at 7:30 p.m. at Thayer Arena.

After falling to La Salle in the title series, 2-1, last March, Hendricken has high hopes for this season.

“We’re going to take it game by game, but our goal is to win a state championship,” Pat Creamer said. “That’s what we want.”