It was the sixth meeting of the season between the two, with Victoria winning the first five.
With captain Cody Van Lierop (injury), No. 1 goaltender Matthew Galajda (World Junior A Challenge), Tyler Welsh (injury) and Keyvan Mokhtari (injury) out of the lineup, the Grizzlies did welcome Lucas Clark and Justin Michaelian back from injury.
Victoria also dressed 15-year-old affiliated player Zachary Okabe from Shawnigan Lake prep school and started affiliated goaltender Shawn Parkinson, as Galajda鈥檚 backup Tony Rehm took a break after four straight starts.
Parkinson, of the Peninsula Panthers, managed to keep the Bulldogs off the scoreboard in the third period and both overtimes as Victoria bounced back from a 4-1 deficit. He finished with 30 saves.
鈥淚t was a hard-working point. They came out really ready to go and we were a little on our heels in the first,鈥� said Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon. 鈥淲e had to make some adjustments to their style of play, but I thought once we got our back against the wall we stepped up and got the point. It would have been nice to get the two.鈥�
Cole Pickup stretched his point streak to five games just 56 seconds into the game for Victoria. That streak was adjusted down as a point was taken away from a recent 3-2 overtime loss in Merritt.
Mackenzie Wight replied less than five minutes later as the teams were knotted at 1-1 after 20 minutes.
Henry Marshall snapped the tie just 40 seconds into the second on a weird bounce off the end boards that eluded Parkinson. Then Trevor Cosgrove scored back-to-back power-play goals for Alberni at 4:06 and 13:17 of the frame as the Grizzlies missed penalty-killers Van Lierop, Welsh and Mokhtari.
Goals from Nick Guiney and Nathan Looysen, just 24 seconds apart, in the dying minutes of the second closed the score to 4-3 before Clark found the equalizer at 13:09 of the third, beating Brody Claeys who made 36 saves.
Victoria, now 22-6-3-4, had out-scored the Bulldogs 25-10 in their previous five wins over Alberni Valley, which is now 11-18-5-2 this season.
The Grizzlies return home to face Prince George on Sunday at 2 p.m. at The Q Centre.
