Box Score LONDON, Ont. - On the heels of an exciting 5-3 victory over the UOIT Ridgebacks on Friday night, the Western Mustangs men’s hockey team continued their winning ways Saturday, taking down the York Lions 4-2 in front of a packed house at Thompson Arena.
 
With the win the Mustangs move to 20-4 on the season good for first place in the OUA. Saturday’s game was also the second win of the year over York as the Mustangs defeated the Lions 10-5 back in November. Despite having previously faced the team in the first half, Western interim head coach Patrick Powers knew heading into the game that the Mustangs would be facing a different team tonight.
 
“We knew we weren’t going to get the team we saw at York before Christmas, I don’t think that’s the true York that’s competed for most of the season,” said Powers. “We expected them to come at us hard, we didn’t expect [David] Blair to be the goaltender, but he came in and played a great game for them.”
 
On offence the Mustangs continued the success they’ve had all season in spreading the puck around as four different goal scorers found their way onto the scoresheet. In terms of total points Steve Reese led the way picking up a goal and an assist to give him 35 points on the season, one behind linemate Matt Clarke who is in second place in CIS scoring.
 
Between the pipes Josh Unice stopped 20 shots to earn his CIS leading 18th win of the season, three more than any other goaltender in the nation. Blair was solid at the other end of the ice stopping 24 shots in the loss.
 
The Mustangs opened the scoring only four minutes into the first period when Tyler Peters took a pass from Daniel Erlich before skating into the slot and beating Blair on the blocker side to notch his fourth goal of the season.
 
Six minutes later Andrew Eastman picked up the puck off the end boards and slid it past a downed Blair to put the Mustangs up 2-0 midway through the opening frame.
 
Penalties then began to catch up with the Mustangs and Jordan Forfar took advantage, ripping a shot from the point to pull the Lions within one at 13:14 of the period. However, the Lions momentum would be short lived as Reese took a pass from Tyler Cuthbert before burying the puck into the York net to restore Western’s two goal lead less than a minute after losing it.
 
The second period wouldn’t see as many offensive fireworks as the opening 20 minutes with neither team being able to score until about 14 minutes into the period. Reese and Clarke would connect, with Reese chipping the puck to Clarke who streaked in on the York net and made no mistake, putting the Mustangs up 4-1.
 
This time it was the Lions who struck back quickly, as Mark Cross scored from the top of the faceoff circle less than 90 seconds later to cut Western’s lead to 4-2. Unfortunately for the Lions that was as close as things would get as neither team could solve the other in the third period, leading to a 4-2 Mustangs victory.
 
Western now enters the final two weeks of the regular season, holding down first place in the OUA West by eight points and leading the entire OUA by three. Despite the team’s current spot in the standings, coach Powers intends for his squad to work as hard as ever.
 
“There’s still a lot at stake,” said Powers. “You want to finish as strong as you started and we want to make sure we don’t just play out the last four games. We don’t have anything locked up yet, and we want to keep improving. As soon as you take your foot off the pedal you get in trouble.”
 
Next up for the Mustangs is a road game on Friday against the Windsor Lancers who currently sit in second place in the OUA West. Western then returns to Thompson Arena on Saturday for a return match with York. Game time for Saturday is set for 7:00 p.m.