After over 85 minutes of hockey, the Lakehead Thunderwolves were rudely awakened by the upstart York Lions, losing 3-2 in the first game of their best-out-of-three OUA quarterfinal series, Wednesday night at Toronto. The pride of York, Lions captain Tyler Harrison was the hero, beating Wolves netminder Kyle Moir at 15:31 in double overtime to break the deadlock and put the Lions in control as the series shifts to Thunder Bay for game 2 on Friday.
Fifth-year senior Harrison (Whitby, Ontario) has been the offensive star all year for his team and helped by an assist from teammate Kyle Searle (Newtonville, Ontario) all but erased the memory of the Thunderwolves Kris Hoggs overtime-forcing goal that came with just 18 seconds left in regulation.
York also got goals from Chris Jones (Grafton, Ontario) and Matt Thomson (Kitchener, Ontario).
Hogg (Sicamous, British Columbia) scored both of LUs goals as his team pilled 54 shots onto York goalie Dave Davenport (Bradford, Ontario), including 18 in the third period and 16 in overtime. In the end, the sophomore netminder narrowly outdueled Lakeheads Moir who made 44 saves in the loss.
The Lions spent much of the night in the drivers seat with the Thunderwolves tenacious offence in pursuit. After a scoreless first period, Jones made it 1-0 at 3:28 of the second on a feed from Matt Martello (Maple, Ontario) before Hogg responded just under two minutes later on an LU powerplay.
Thomsons goal came at the midway point of the frame with help from Jesse Grespan (Toronto). The 2-1 lead would hold up until the dying moments of the third period when Mark Soares (Burnaby, British Columbia) and Ryan Baird (Thunder Bay) assisted on Hoggs second tally of the game to extend play.
Lakehead will look to keep their playoff hopes alive on Friday when they host game 2 at the Fort William Gardens. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. If the Wolves win on Friday, the third and deciding game of the series will be played at the Gardens on Saturday night at 7:30.