The Lakehead Thunderwolves were edged 4-3 by the UQTR Patriotes in a tightly-contested match in front of 2153 fansat the Fort William Gardens on Saturday night.
In a scoreless in the first period, Lakeheads Brennen Dubchak and Jake Wright had good scoring opportunities but couldnt put the puck past Patriotes netminder Francis Desrosiers. At the other end of the ice, Wolves goalie Jeff Bosch also made several key stops.
Kelin Ainsworth got Lakehead on the board with a one-timer off a nice feed from Cody Alcock at 5:13 of the second period, with Andrew Tessier picking up the other assist.
Felix Plouffe evened the score near the midway mark of the period, but the Wolves regained the lead when Mike Quesnele beat Desrosiers up high with a wrist shot at 13:06. Assisting on the goal were David Quesnele and Nathan Cull.
With only 16 seconds left in the middle stanza, Plouffe notched his second goal of the period while the Patriotes were on the power play to knot the score at 2-2 heading into the third.
Carl-Antoine Delisle converted a Lakehead giveaway into a 3-2 lead for UQTR at 3:44 of the final frame, but with the Wolves on the power play, Ryan Magill finished off a nifty set-up by Jay Gilbert to tie the game back up at 3-3. Mike Hammond collected the second assist on Magills goal at the 7:28 mark.
Guillaume Asselin got the winner for the Patriotes just over a minute later to round out the scoring for the night.
Total shots on goal were 33-31 in favor of UQTR.
The Molson Three Stars of the game were:
1.Felix Plouffe, UQTR
2.Ryan Magill, Lakehead
3.Guillaume Asselin, UQTR
The win keeps the Patriotes in first place in the East Division with a record of 16-2-2, while the Wolves remain in sixth spot in the ten-team West Division with an OUA record of 8-11-2.
Lakehead will travel to Toronto next weekend to take on the Varsity Blues on Friday night followed by a Saturday matinee with the Ryerson Rams.