The Lakehead Thunderwolves beat the RMC Paladins 5-2 on Saturday night in front of 2132 fans at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.
The Wolves controlled the play early, and had some good scoring chances on Paladins goalie Evan Deviller.
Kelin Ainsworth snuck past the RMC defense and put a nice back-hander past Deviller to give Lakehead the early 1-0 lead at 6:33 of the first.
Lakehead was on the power-play for a significant portion of the opening period and found the post twice, but the Wolves were unable to increase their lead.
RMC evened things up at 5:23 of the second period when RMC defenseman Scott McDonald fired a floater from the point the bounced off Lakehead defenseman Mike Quesnele and past Justin McDonald.
Not long after, Lakehead regained the lead on a Keith Grondin wraparound. It was an unassisted marker.
Midway through the middle frame, Justin McDonald made some big saves for Lakehead as the Wolves killed off a 5-on-3 penalty. The strong net-minding paid off and Jake Carrick put Lakehead up 3-1 at 12:07 after he outworked the Paladin defense and took the puck hard to the net. Mike Hammond was credited with the lone assist.
At 13:01 of the third period Trevor Gamache put Lakehead up 4-1 on a nice effort, with the assists going to Chris De la Lande and Luke Maw.
Scott Domenico pulled RMC to within two goals at 15:49 of the third, but the Lakehead win was sealed by a Trevor Gamache short-handed empty-netter in the final seconds, giving Lakehead the 5-2 win.
The Molson Three Stars of the game were:
1. Keith Grondin, Lakehead
2. Justin McDonald, Lakehead
3. Jake Carrick, Lakehead
The Wolves will travel to Guelph next weekend for a two-game series with the Gryphons.