The No. 3 Lakehead Thunderwolves and the No. 10 Brock Badgers played to a hard fought 2-2 tie Saturday night at the Thorold Arena in St. Catherine's, Ontario. Lakehead's goals came from Joel Scherban and Robert Hillier while Chris Knighton and Jason Harshaw answered for the Badgers. Brock goaltender Jeremy Day wasvery strong, turning aside 40 Lakehead shots.The Wolves outshot the Badgers 42-26 in the game. Lakehead's record now sits at 18-3-2 in OUA play and 25-5-3 overall. Brock's record sits at 13-7-3 in conference play and 15-12-3 overall.
The tie means that Lakehead will place second in the OUA Far West behind No. 2 Western for the third straight season. What will be different is the opening playoff opponent as the Wolves will be up against a resurgent Waterloo Warriors team on Wednesday, February 25th in Waterloo in the first game of the best of three divisional semi-final. Game two will be played in Thunder Bay on Friday, February 27th and a possible third game would be played on Saturday, February 28th.
Lakehead's Joel Scherban opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal at 13:06 of the first period, set up by Jeff Richards. Brock replied back 22 seconds later when Chris Knighton fired in a powerplay marker. The Badgers then took a 2-1 lead on a Jason Harshaw goal a minute later. Lakehead outshot Brock 12-10 in the first.
Brock controlled the first 13 minutes of the second and then the Wolves seem to find some life in the latter part of the period but neither team could snap the twine for a goal. Lakehead outshot Brock 12-10 in the second.
Lakehead picked up the tempo in the third and were finally rewarded at 14:27when Robert Hillier scored on the powerplay.There was no other scoring and the game went into O/T. Lakehead outshotBrock 12-4 in the third.
The Wolves stormed the Brock net in O/T, but couldn't beat Brock netminder Day. Joel Scherban had a glorious chance but lifted the puck over the Badger net. The Wolves outshot Brock 6-2 in the O/T.
The Wolves play again Sunday night at 7:00 p.m. EST against the Laurier Golden Hawks in Waterloo, Ont. in Lakehead's last game of the OUA regular season.
Scoring Summary:
First Period
6:54 Lakehead: Joel Scherban (Richards, Rawski) SH
6:32 Brock: Chris Knighton (Pederson, Young) PP
5:37 Brock: Chris Harshaw (McKenzie, Petrie)
Second Period
no scoring
Third Period
5:33 Lakehead: Hillier (Unassisted) PP
OT
no scoring
Goaltenders:
Jeremy Day (Brock): 2 goals on 42 shots
Grant McCune (Lakehead): 2 goals on 26 shots