The Santa Rosa Junior College Polar Bears erased a two-goal deficit and outlasted the University of California Davis 5-4 in overtime Feb. 21 at Snoopy’s Home Ice, earning their second win of the season.
UC Davis opened the scoring in the first period and extended its lead early in the second, putting Santa Rosa 0-2 before the Polar Bears responded.
Forward Sebastian Herbst sparked the comeback with his first goal as a Polar Bear, finishing a setup from forward Toby Petrus to narrow the deficit.
“Just being the first goal of the game, I feel like I got everybody fired up,” Herbst said. “ I really feel like it changed the dynamic of the game out there. We lifted our heads and started playing good.”
Forward Josh Sampietro buried a feed from Petrus to tie the game 2-2 entering the third period.
Sampietro gave the Polar Bears their first lead of the night off assists from Petrus and defenseman Owen Hamblin. Minutes later, Sampietro struck again — assisted by Petrus and forward Kai Krombholz — completing a natural hat trick and extending the lead to 4-2.
UC Davis refused to fold, answering with two late third-period goals to force overtime.
“It brings back a lot of history between the JC and Davis,” defenseman Owen Hamblin said. “A lot of games I’ve been in have gone to overtime, so it was nice to win again.”
The third period also produced a holding penalty against Davis, but Santa Rosa was unable to convert before regulation ended.
In overtime, Petrus delivered the decisive goal, finishing a set up from Sampietro to seal the 5-4 victory.
“I knew when I saw Toby get the puck in overtime and start skating up the ice, I knew he was going to do something cool with it,” Herbst said.
Petrus factored into all five Santa Rosa goals, recording one goal and four assists, while Sampietro finished with three goals and an assist.
Center Traber Burns said the performance wasn’t a breakthrough, but the product of consistent progress.
“This one feels like all the hard work paying off,” Burns said. “We’ve been having steady improvement throughout the season, but the win column hadn’t reflected that until now.”
Burns credited improved structure for the offensive surge.
“The short answer is we started scoring,” he said. “But that’s a result of the process we’ve been working on throughout the season. We’ve been building chemistry. That starts with the breakouts. The more success we find with that, the more offensive opportunities we get.”
Improved execution across all three zones allowed Santa Rosa to sustain pressure rather than force plays that led to turnovers.
“We started playing a little bit better in our own zone,” Burns said. “The neutral zone and offensive zone opportunities started coming to us.”
The victory was Santa Rosa’s first since a Nov. 22 road win at California State University Fresno and its first at Snoopy’s Home Ice made it matter more.
“This one feels way better than the Fresno win,” Burns said. “We’re in our own bar. Home games are always better than away games. And no disrespect to Fresno, but Davis is a very skilled team. We’re really proud to come away with this one.”
