It took them about 117 minutes of hockey, but the Austin Bruins are earned their way into the NAHL Central Division finals in Minot Saturday.

Lucas Kohls scored the game-winning goal with just 3:03 left in the third overtime to vault the Bruins past the Minotauros 4-3 and the Bruins won the NAHL Central Division semifinal series 3-1.

The game was the longest in NAHL history and Austin attempted 23 game winning shots before Kohls, who is from Forest Lake, Minn., finally delivered.

Austin will host Bismarck in games one and two of the NAHL Central Division Finals Friday and Saturday at 7:05 p.m. in Riverside Arena. It is the third straight year the Bruins and Bobcats will play for a trip to the Robertson Cup. Bismarck won each of the last two series.

The Bruins tied things up at 3-3 in the second period when Trey Dodd and Kohls each scored power play goals in the span of four minutes.

Nick Lehr stopped 50 shots for Austin and the Bruins had 71 shots on goal.

SCORING SUMMARY

Austin 0 3 0 0 0 1 — 4

Minot 2 1 0 0 0 0 — 3

First period

(M) Tim Donohue (Cameron Rowat) 18:28

(M) Luke Volton (Alexander Kasitsyn, Colton Kramer) 18:39

Second period

(A) Easton Viitala (Trey Dodd, Drew Anderson) 5:54

(M) Jake Johnson (Donohue, Jadin Martin) 9:54

(A) Trey Dodd (power play) Luke Dietsch, Drew Anderson) 12:02

(A) Lucas Kohls (power play) (Viitala, Casey Jerry) 15:41

Third period

No scoring

OT

No scoring

Second OT

No scoring

Third OT

(A) Lucas Kohls 16:57

Power plays: Austin — 2-for-7; Minot — 0-for-5