Mark Jones/MDN Minot’s Zack Bross (9) battles for the puck in the Minotauro’s 3-1 loss to Aberdeen on Friday at Maysa Arena in Minot.

Entering Friday night’s home contest, the Minot Minotauros were five points ahead of Bismarck for first place in the Central Division of the NAHL.

The Aberdeen Wings came to Maysa Arena with 15 points and were two points ahead of Austin for last place in the division.

But the Wings took advantage of an off-night by the Tauros and skated to a 3-1 win in front of near-capacity crowd in Minot.

After the two teams played a scoreless opening period, the Wings found the back of the net as Trystan Isenhour took a pass from Carson Dimoff from the left wing and got a shot past Minot goalkeeper Lucas Murray.

It didn’t take the Minotauros long to counter.

Nearly three minutes later, Reid Stefanson scored on an assist from Alex Adams. He was able to score as the Wings were unable to clear the puck from their end of the ice.

But in the third period, the Wings got an unassisted goal from Kevin Fitzgerald at the 8:39 mark of the period. Aberdeen iced the game with 15 seconds left as Dimoff scored an empty-net goal to round out the scoring.

For the contest, Aberdeen outshot the Minotauros 36-30, including a 12-6 edge in the opening period. The Wings also held a 10-8 edge on shots in the final period.

Aberdeen finished the contest 0-for-6 on the power play, while Minot was 0-for-3. Both teams were on the power play twice in the final 20 minutes.

Murray stopped 32 of the 34 shots he faced in the loss. Aberdeen goalkeeper Arttu Kulmala stopped 29 of the 30 shots.

The same two teams will wrap up the weekend series this evening at Maysa Arena at 7:35 p.m.

Mark Jones covers high school sports and general assignments. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJones27_MDN.