He wasn’t injured.

In fact, he had a front-row seat for the action, sitting in the home penalty box after fighting Maryland’s Thomas Jarman.

The Rebels were leading 2-0 when Olson went into the box, but by the time he exited, the Black Bears had closed the gap to 3-2.

Olson, Jamestown’s captain and first-line center, had to make an impact in the final 14 minutes.

Maryland’s Reid Leibold skates in alone on Jamestown goaltender Noah West during Friday’s NAHL East Division game at Northwest Arena. P-J photo by Chad Ecklof

So he scored the game-winning goal.

The Rebels’ Nick Siffringer tied up his man in the center of the Maryland zone and Olson skated onto the loose puck before beating Black Bears goaltender Andrew Takacs on a backhand with 13:27 remaining to put the hosts up 4-2 en route to a 5-3 North American Hockey League East Division victory at Northwest Arena.

“I come from that era of hockey where if you’re up 2-0 and somebody asks you to go, you go,” Jamestown head coach Joe Coombs said of the fight. “I get it, but he’s not a guy we can lose for 15 minutes.”

Olson later added an assist on Carter Korpi’s empty-net goal as Jamestown won for just the third time in its last 10 games.

“We are a team that does things well for about six minutes. … We don’t continue to work our process. It’s been a battle all year. When the two (points) come, we’ll take it,” Coombs said. ” … The old saying is you can’t get upset when you win, and I think that’s a complete lie. I think it’s about how you win and how you lose, but we’ll certainly take it.”

Rebels goaltender Noah West made 31 saves, his best coming less than three minutes into the game when Maryland’s Ethan Heidepriem carried the puck across the top of the goal crease in an attempt to wait out West, but the 6-foot-2 backstop from Pittsboro, Indiana got his left foot tight to the goalpost and his leg flat along the ice to foil the try.

“That was a huge stop. … Off a turnover, they’re in front of our net and he makes a big stop,” Coombs said. “If that goes into the net, this is a different hockey game. Your goaltender is pretty important and he was there tonight.”

Jamestown (14-24-1-2) actually led 3-0 midway through the second period before the Black Bears (16-16-7-0) made a game out of it.

The Rebels made it 1-0 less than five minutes into the first period as Liam Hansson’s pressure kept the puck in the Maryland zone before Zach Brydges picked up the puck along the wall. The winger from Woodbury, Minnesota skated in alone on net before scoring past Takacs on his backhand.

Just over five minutes into the second period, Jamestown struck again. The Black Bears were unable to change a few tired players after icing the puck and the Rebels took advantage as Hansson won the faceoff back to Ian Carpenter. The puck then found its way behind the net before again going back to Carpenter at the point, who fired a shot on net that was deflected in by Hansson.

“What’s really funny is we ran a faceoff play off that faceoff that wasn’t even remotely close to what was supposed to happen,” Coombs said. ” … There wasn’t one single guy on that ice that did what they were supposed to do other than the center iceman.”

Over three minutes after Olson’s fight, Janis Vizbelis made it 3-0. Tyler German toe-dragged the puck around a defender along the far wall before feeding Vizbelis inside the faceoff circle. The Wilton, Connecticut native unleased a one-timer that beat Takacs high to the glove side and it looked like the Rebels might be on their way to an easy win.

Hampus Rydqvist got Maryland on the scoreboard when he scored a power-play goal on a wrist shot off a pass from Mikhael Gonchar with 3:27 left in the second period.

“(Olson’s fight) got a little momentum, but then we turned the puck over,” Coombs said. “It wasn’t too long after the fight … we turned it over at the blue line and one went in our net. Once that happened, we got sloppy and they exposed us a little bit.”

Jackson Sterrett made it 3-2 with 14:50 left in the game when he won a 50-50 battle in front of the Jamestown net and scored low along the ice.

After Olson made it 4-2, the Black Bears again made it a one-goal game off a faceoff as Reid Leibold converted a nice passing play from Cameron Recchi and Rydqvist.

Korpi then put the game away when he took the feed from Olson and scored from just outside the blue line with 32 seconds remaining.

The Rebels will again try for a weekend sweep at home tonight, something they have been unable to accomplish since Nov. 1-2 against Maine.

“We haven’t responded all year long. We’ve been swept three times and we have swept twice,” Coombs said. ” … We’ve got to come back here ready to play.”

NOTES: Takacs was credited with 29 saves for Maryland. … Recchi is the son of Hockey Hall of Famer Mark Recchi, who played 22 seasons in the NHL and won three Stanley Cups (Pittsburgh Penguins 1991, Carolina Hurricanes 2006, Boston Bruins 2011). … Gonchar is the nephew of Sergei Gonchar, who also played 22 seasons in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup in 2009 with the Penguins.