The Lakehead Thunderwolves staked a two-goal lead, but couldnt hang on as the Guelph Gryphons skated away with a 6-3 victory in front of 1679 fans at the Fort William Gardens on Saturday night.
In a turnaround from the night before, Lakehead came out very strong and dominated the play early on.
Dillon Donnelly got the only goal of the first period 7:34 into the game, with Kelin Ainsworth and Cody Alcock picking up the assists.
Ainsworth and Jake Ringuette set up Carson Dubchak who scored on a Lakehead power play at 1:17 of the second period to give the Wolves a 2-0 lead.
Michael Stevens got Guelph on the board midway through the middle frame, and then at 13:12 Trevor Morbeck evened the score when he slammed home a rebound after Wolves goalie Devin Green made a nice initial save while the Gryphons held the man-advantage.
Guelph went ahead 3-2 on a shot from the the blue line by Emmanuel Gialedakis at 7:02 of the third, and Robert Lepine struck twice later in the period to put the Gryphons ahead 5-2 with less than five minutes to play.
Lakehead's Justin Sefton responded by firing the puck past Guelph netminder Keith Hamilton 20 seconds later to cut the Gryphons lead to two, with Billy Jenkinsgetting the helper.
Lakehead pulled Green for an extra attacker in the waning moments, but Cody Thompson scored an empty-netter with 31 seconds remaining to ice the game for Guelph.
Total shots on goal for the night were 37-27 for the Thunderwolves.
Lakehead went 1-for-4 on the power play, while Guelph was 1-for-3.
The Molson three stars of the game were:
1.Robert Lepine, Guelph
2.Justin Sefton, Lakehead
3.Cody Thompson, Guelph
The lossgives the Wolves and even .500 mark in OUA playwith a record of 6-6-1, and dropsthem into seventh place in the closely-contested ten-team West Division.
Lakehead will travel to Laurier next weekend to playitsfinal two games before the Christmas exams break.