Freshman Matt Dias had his best game in a Thunderwolves uniform with five points to lead Lakehead to a 8-5 win over the Western Mustangs, Saturday night at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay. The Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario native tallied two goals and added three assists as No. 8 Lakehead (17-5-2) completed the weekend sweep to draw even with No. 3 Western (18-6-0) at the top of the OUA West Division.
The Thunderwolves got two goals and one assist from Dan Speer (Thunder Bay) while Shandor Alphonso (Orangeville, Ontario), Mark Soares (Burnaby, British Columbia), Scott Dobben (Drayton, Ontario) and Kris Hogg (Sicamous, British Columbia) also found the back of the net. Freshman Matt Caria (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) had three assists in extending his point-scoring streak through his first eight conference games with Lakehead.
Ryan Martinelli led Western with two goals while Scott Aarssen, Geoff Killing and Aaron Snow also scored.
The Mustangs opened the game with a quick goal from Snow at 0:49 of the first, breaking Lakehead goalie Kyle Moirs shutout streak at two games. UWO kept the offense coming with Aarseen and Killing each scoring powerplay goals to make it 3-0 for the visitors 11:53 into the game.
Lakehead came storming back with five unanswered goals bridging the first and second periods. First, Dias scored at 13:51 of the first on the powerplay, followed less than one minute later by Hogg. Speer knotted the game up at 3-3 by the first intermission on assists from Caria and Dias.
Dias added his second of the night at 2:43 of the second and Alphonso extended the lead to 5-3 when he capitalized on a brutal giveaway in the neutral zone to beat Mustangs starting netminder Josh Unice on the backhand. That was it for Unice, as he was replace by Keyvan Hunt.
UWO and LU traded two goals each to close the second period, with both Stangs markers coming off the stick of Martinelli with Soares and then Dobben scoring for the Wolves.
Both teams offence fizzled through most of the third period but Speer added a powerplay marker at 19:07 to put the final nail in the Mustangs coffin.
Special teams were a major factor in the contest as Lakehead went 3-8 with the man advantage and Western 2-9.
Lakehead faces the UOIT Ridgebacks in Friday and Saturday night home games next weekend at the Fort William Gardens. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. both nights.