It took overtime for the Lakehead Thunderwolves to take down the Waterloo Warriors 3-2 on Saturday night at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay, ON.
The first period started out similar to the first period in Friday nights game that saw both teams not wanting to make the first mistake. The Thunderwolves had some great opportunities to put the puck in the net, including a nice chance by Andrew Wilkins after a great pass from behind the net from Jake Carrick. But it was the Warriors that got on the board first at 16:03 of the after having Lakehead hemmed in their own zone. Josh Schappert pounced on a rebound after the initial save from Lakehead netminder Alex Dupuis to put Waterloo in front 1-0.
Lakehead controlled the play for much of the second period, but once again it was Waterloos Josh Schappert that capitalized while on the power-play, giving the Warriors a 2-0 lead at 10:24.
Lakehead was rewarded a few minutes later on a nice goal-mouth feed from Mike Hammond, finished off by freshman Keith Grondin for the easy tap-in. The other assist was credited to Thomas Frazee. The Thunderwolves closed out the second period with a late goal from Jake Carrick after a nice drop pass from Matt Caria at 18:59.
The final stanza was the most physical period, with several hits from both sides, including a big one from Trevor Gamache on Warriors defenseman Joe Underwood. Lakeheads Alex Dupuis saved his best for the third period as he came through with some big saves when needed to keep the game knotted at 2-2.
With Lakehead dominating the play in overtime, Mitch Fillman went end-to-end and slipped the puck past Leclerc to give Lakehead the 3-2 win.
The Molson 3 Stars of the game were:
1.Mitch Fillman, Lakehead
2.Josh Schappert, Waterloo
3.Mike Hammond, Lakehead
Lakehead is on the road next weekend for a pair of games at Ontario Tech.