The Peterborough Petes looked all but certain to be the first team eliminated from the Memorial Cup, and they still knocked out the Kamloops Blazers on Thursday night.

Like a cat with nine lives, the Peterborough Petes refuse to lose.

Thursday night at Sandman Centre, the OHL champions forced overtime after erasing a 4-1 deficit against the Kamloops Blazers. They ended their hosts' season when J.R. Avon beat Dylan Ernst on a quick strike opportunity at 10:54 of 5-on-5 sudden death.

The goal came just seconds after some heavy net-front pressure from the Blazers left three Petes skaters scrambling to get back into the play. Meanwhile, Montreal Canadiens prospect Owen Beck got his stick on the puck, then went wide to the outside before feeding a wide-open Avon in the slot.

"It was Becker coming down the wall, and he's got NHL speed and an NHL shot," described left winger Brennan Othmann after the game. "And J.R.'s got NHL speed and an NHL shot as well. Putting those two on the ice means two dangerous players."

Two Peterborough natives, too, coming through in a do-or-die situation. Avon, a Philadelphia Flyers prospect, has played his entire junior career with the Petes. Beck was acquired at mid-season from the Mississauga Steelheads.

"Becker made a made a great play," Othmann continued. "J.R. has been hot since the playoffs started, and he continues to be out here at the Memorial Cup. He just put it in the back of the next and we won, so everyone's pretty happy."

The goal was Avon's third of the tournament — one against each opponent. And Peterborough now advances into Friday's semifinal against the Seattle Thunderbirds.

It's an outcome that seemed wildly unlikely four days ago when the Petes opened their tournament with a 6-3 loss to Seattle and a 10-2 crushing by Kamloops on back-to-back days.

Staring down elimination, Peterborough earned a spot in the tie-breaking game by beating the 2-0 Quebec Remparts. Now, they've written another chapter in their unlikely story, which saw them finish 10th in the OHL's regular-season standings before a playoff run where they toppled the top-ranked Ottawa 67's, came back from a 3-2 deficit to eliminate the No. 2 North Bay Battalion, then took down the mighty London Knights.

"I don't know how it stacks up here, but we are the oldest team in the OHL," Othmann said. "We believe. We have guys that have played in the Memorial Cup. Becker and I were fortunate to play the world juniors. So we have guys that have won, we have that winning pedigree. We're a good team of brothers, and we stuck together the whole way."

At the 25-minute mark on Thursday, it looked like the fairy tale had reached its final chapter. Backed by a partisan home crowd, the Blazers controlled play early.

Peterborough got on the scoreboard first when Connor Lockhart beat Ernst for his second of the tournament on his team's first shot of the game at 7:52. But the Blazers stormed back with tallies from captain Logan Stankoven, Olen Zellweger and Harrison Brunicke. They outshot Peterborough 15-6 through the first 20 minutes, took a 3-1 lead into the locker room, and extended that lead to 4-1 on the first of the tournament from Logan Bairos early in the second.

At that point, Petes coach Rob Wilson urged his team not to throw in the towel.

"The bottom line was, when it went 4-1, I said, 'If you don't allow another goal, we can win this. If we give up another goal, then we're going to be in big trouble.'

"Up 4-2, I gave them the same message, saying we can't give up a goal. To to 4-3, said the same thing. Can't give up a goal. Then 4-4, and then it was just one of those things. The muddier the water, the better it is for us."

Wilson also identified two other keys to this team's win. 

Goaltender Michael Simpson sat next to him at the postgame press conference, named player of the game after stopping 43 of 47 Kamloops shots, including 10 in overtime.

And every time you see a player make a big hit or drop the gloves to try to give his team a spark going forward, remember this second-period sequence from Chase Stillman.

First, the clean open-ice hit as Matthew Seminoff releases a slot from the shot. 

Then, whether or not Stillman should have had to defend himself, he didn't hesitate when challenged by Caeden Bankier.

The tide didn't turn immediately. But Bankier, a top-line forward for Kamloops, was assessed an instigator penalty as part of 17 minutes' worth of infractions, while Stillman drew only a fighting major. The Blazers extended their lead before Othmann got the comeback started at 7:50 of the second. Later in the period, goals from Samuel Mayer and Brian Zanetti came 1:23 apart to level the score late in the second.

As Avon's goal sparked the celebration on the Petes' bench, it simultaneously crushed the Blazers and their fans, who saw a strong season come to an abrupt end.

As the devastated Kamloops players consoled each other on the ice, they were also bidding farewell to teammates Daylan Kuefler, Ethan Brandwood and Ryan Hofer, whose major junior eligibility is expiring. 

Captain Logan Stankoven, a Kamloops native, is also not expected to be back. A second-round pick of the Dallas Stars who led the WHL playoffs with 30 points in just 14 games, the 20-year-old is poised to enter the pro ranks this fall.

He kept his uniform and pads on when he and coach Shaun Clouston met the media postgame.

"It just feels weird because I've spent the last five years here in my hometown," Stankoven said as he tried to digest his emotions. "I don't think it's hit me yet that this is probably my last game here."

Had the Blazers hung on to win, they'd be preparing for the difficult challenge of a third game in three nights in Saturday's semifinal. 

Instead, it's the Petes who must manage the intense emotions of an overtime triumph while preparing for another do-or-die match — and a chance for revenge against the Thunderbirds.

"I yelled at them right away," chuckled Wilson. "So then I felt good, and I knew we were going right, ready for tomorrow. 

"We just went in and I said, 'Celebrate this. Enjoy this. But let's get our heads going and get home, back to the hotel. Eat. Get fueled up, and start thinking about Seattle.' And to be fair, they've been used to that and doing that."

Total turnaround time: just over 21.5 hours. The goal horn for Avon's game-winner sounded at 9:24 p.m. PT on Thursday. Game time for Friday's semifinal for Seattle is 7 p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET).

The winner will face Quebec in Sunday's championship game (4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET).