The Lakehead Thunderwolves defeated the Toronto Varsity Blues in dramatic fashion by winning 5-4 in overtime at the Varsity Arena on the U of T campus on Saturday night.
It was a game in which the Wolves never held the lead until the match was finally over, closed out by an amazing play Lakehead’s Patrick Murphy.
Toronto opened the scoring 4:28 into the contest when Scott Kirton finished off a two-on-one that Wolves’ goalie Nic Renyard didn’t have much of a chance on.
Lakehead tied it up with a power play goal at 9:14 of the first when Blues’ netminder Frederic Foulem was unable to control the rebound on Jordan Larson’s backhander and Scott Gall slammed it home from the doorstep.
Toronto went ahead 2-1 while the Blues held the man advantage at 14:39 when David Thomson redirected a pass from Kevin Lavoie past Renyard.
The Thunderwolves power play struck twice in the second period, the first one coming at 5:37 when Jordan King converted on a rebound off Justin Kuczek’s one-timer, with Josh Laframboise getting the other assist.
Kirton replied for the Blues just 15 seconds later by beating Renyard from just outside the blue paint.
King knotted the score at 3-3 with his second goal of the period when he tipped Murphy’s wrister behind Foulem.
Toronto came out strong in the third, but Renyard made several key saves to keep the Blues off the score sheet until Thomson fired a rocket high on his glove side to finish off a three-on-two rush and put Toronto up 4-3 with 4:15 remaining in regulation.
Tomas Soustal replied for Lakehead with 2:45 to go on a wrister from the left hash marks that sailed past Foulem and sent the game into overtime.
The extra period ended in just 46 seconds when Murphy scored a highlight-reel goal by deking a Toronto defender to walk in alone on Foulem and then beat him with a backhander.
The final shots on goal tally was 36-31 for the Thunderwolves.
On the night, Lakehead was 3-for-6 with the man advantage, while Toronto went 1-for-5.
The win was Lakehead’s sixth in a row and capped off a three-game weekend sweep, improving its OUA record to 7-2 (11-3 overall). It also pulls the Thunderwolves to within one point of Ryerson atop the West Division.
Lakehead will return home for a two-game series against the York Lions at the Fort William Gardens next weekend.