On a night when Lakehead was dominated in the shots-on-goal battle it took one overtime blast off the stick of Andy Hyvarinen (Thunder Bay) to secure a 4-3 win over the Guelph Gryphons in game one of their OUA West semi-final series, Wednesday night at Guelph, Ontario. The Gryphons outshot the Wolves in each of the three regulation periods and 34-23 overall as freshman goalie Alex Dupuis (Thunder Bay) stood tall for his third win of the postseason.
Dan Speer (Thunder Bay), Ryan McDonald (Prince Albert, Saskatchewan) and Matt Caria (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) also scored for LU which looked to have taken control with a 3-1 lead at the 10:19 mark of the third period when Caria tallied.
Guelph responded emphatically a minute later on a powerplay goal by Tim Priamo (Guelph, Ontario) followed by a goal at 15:34 by Kris Belan (Florence, Ontario) to force the extra session. Patrick Campbell (Sauble Beach, Ontario) scored the Gryphons other goal, the lone first period marker for both teams.
Goalie Scott Van Bommels lofty playoff save percentage took a big hit in the contest as the sophomore stopped 19 of 23 shots in the loss. Entering the contest, Van Bommel had stopped 93.4% of the shots he had faced in the postseason.
The series shifts north to Thunder Bay as game two goes Friday night, 7:30 p.m. EST at the Fort William Gardens.