The Muskegon Lumberjacks refused to say die again on Friday, even against the high-flying Chicago Steel.

The Jacks, who have specialized in coming from behind all season, overcame two deficits to tie the game and force it to overtime.

In the end they lost 4-3 when Jack Harvey, the USHL’s leading scorer, found the net just 45 seconds into the OT period, but Muskegon still skated off with a hard-earned one point in the standings.

The Lumberjacks dropped to 10-7-1 on the season. They have 21 points in the standings and are alone in fourth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference standings. Chicago, the first-place team in the conference, improved to 13-5-2.

The two teams will go at it again in Chicago on Saturday night, then the Jacks will visit Dubuque on Sunday.

Chicago led 1-0 after one period following a goal by Cameron Johnson at the 18:12 mark.

Muskegon’s Ethan Whitcomb (11), who scored his 10th goal of the season on Friday. Photo/Jeremy Clark

The Lumberjacks’ Michal Callow scored his fourth goal of the season on a power play at 9:37 of the second period, with assists from Matthew Morden and George Fegaras.

The score was tied 1-1 headed into the third period.

Chicago pulled ahead 3-1 with third-period goals from Harvey his 17th of the season) at 1:46 of the third and Michael Hagens the 5:29 mark.

The Lumberjacks pulled even again, collecting late goals from Ethan Whitcomb on a power play (his 10th of the season) at the 17:04 mark and Jake Richard (also his 10th of the season) at 18:14 to force overtime.

Gavin McCarthy and Owen Mehlenbacher each had an assist on Whitcomb’s goal.

The overtime period didn’t last long, with Harvey nailing his 18th goal less than a minute into play.

The Jacks outshot the Steel 35-30, kept the home team scoreless on four power play opportunities and scored on two of their five chances.

Lumberjacks goalie Conor Callaghan stopped 27 of the 31shots he faced to take the hard-luck loss.