The Lakehead Thunderwolves were beaten 6-3 by the Brock Badgers at the Seymour-Hannah Centre in St. Catharines Saturday night, in a game that was closer than the final score would imply.
Brocks Sammy Banga opened the scoring when he put the puck past Lakehead netminder Justin McDonald five minutes in the game, but Adam Restoule replied less than a minute later to tie the score.
Late in the period, Mike Quesneles blast handcuffed Brock goalkeeper Real Cormier to give the Wolves a 2-1 lead heading into the second.
Lakehead outshot Brock 18-13 in the opening period.
Matt Abercrombie tied the game at 2-2 just over two minutes into the middle stanza, but Luke Maw put the Wolves back in front four minutes later.
The Badgers Jeff MacPherson evened things up at 3-3 to round out the scoring in the second period, one in which Brock outshot Lakehead 12-8.
Brock broke the game open in the third period with three unanswered goals, the winner coming from Andrew Radjenovic five minutes into the final frame while the Badgers were on the power play.
Radjenovic added another marker a couple of minutes later to increase Brocks lead to 5-3, and then Kaine Geldart sealed the deal for the Badgers with an empty-netter with just over a minute remaining in the game.
Shots on goal in the third period were 13-9 for Brock, and 38-35 in favor of the Badgers for the game.
The Wolves loss, combined with a win by Western Ontario over York tonight clinches first place in the OUA West Division for the Mustangs. Lakehead still sits alone in second place, but Windsor and Ryerson are now just one point back of the Wolves with only two games left in the regular season.
Lakehead will return home to finish up the OUA campaign with a pair of games versus the Waterloo Warriors at the Fort William Gardens next weekend.