The holiday season is among us and Christmas is only 28 days away, but the Warbirds co-op prep girls hockey team received an early present Saturday night.

The Fond du Lac-based co-op that absorbed the Beaver Dam co-op this year was tied up with Sun Prairie-based Cap City late when the Cougars’ Colleen Milligan received a 2-minute minor penalty for holding with 4 minutes, 2 seconds left in the game. Just 55 seconds later, the Warbirds’ Dayna Jones scored the game-winner in Fond du Lac/Beaver Dam’s 5-4 victory.

“They’re a very good team,” Warbirds senior Lauren Huettl said. “They were at state last year, so it was an accomplishment to beat them.”

Both teams knew the game was going to be tough, as the Warbirds were ranked fifth and the Cougars were seventh in the WisconsinPrepHockey.net preseason rankings.

“You expected this — it was going to be a close game,” Warbirds co-head coach Paul Uttech said. “I think we would’ve liked to be a little bit more effective offensively, but you have to give them some credit because they played solid defensively. They were solid in net.

“We needed to get a little more traffic in front with some of our shots on net.”