The Lakehead Thunderwolves fell 8-4 to the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in front of 3270 fans at the Fort William Gardens on Saturday night in the second game of the Crime Stoppers Christmas Challenge.
The Wolves came out fast, outshooting the Bulldogs in the early going, but it was UMDs Blake Young that opened the scoring when he broke in all alone and beat Lakehead goalie Justin McDonald with a hard backhander 10:35 into the game.
Alex Iafallo put the Bulldogs up 2-0 with a seeing-eye wrist shot while the Wolves were a man short to round out the scoring in the first period.
UMD took control in the second with goals from Willie Raskob, Karson Kuhlman and Justin Crandall that quickly put the Bulldogs up 5-0.
Lakeheads Keith Grondin and Nathan Cull had some nice scoring chances, but were unable to get anything past UMD starting netminder Matt McNeely or his backup Alex Fons, who took over the Bulldogs goaltending duties at the halfway point of the game as had been planned.
David Quesnele broke Lakeheads scoring drought with hard wrist shot the handcuffed Fons at 5:04 of the third period, but Raskob replied for UMD shortly after on a shot that deflected off an officials skate and into the Wolves net.
Lakehead responded with goals from Keith Grondin, who deked Fons on a breakaway, and Nathan Cull, who ripped a blast by him a few minutes later to narrow the gap to 6-3.
Tony Cameranesi and Jared Thomas each notched markers to put the Bulldogs comfortably ahead before Cody Alcock scored for the Wolves with under a minute to go to close out the scoring.
Shots on goal for the night were 49-32 in favor of the Bulldogs.
The Molson Three Stars of the game were:
1.Cal Decowski, UMD
2.Jay Gilbert, Lakehead
3.Willie Raskob, UMD
Lakehead will hit the road next weekend when it starts the second half of the OUA regular season with a pair of games at Nipissing.