Box Score LONDON, Ont. – Kyle De Coste and Matt Clarke scored 16 seconds apart to open a 19-shot first period and the Mustangs never looked back, plowing their way to a 6-1 victory over Guelph at Thompson Arena Sunday night to take the cake in the best-of-three OUA West Quarterfinal series two games to one.
 
Western's big win comes less than 24 hours after they squeaked out a thrilling 2-1 win over the Gryphons in game two, getting a goal from Stefan Salituro 6:24 into double overtime to force game three and keep their playoff hopes alive.
 
After the game, Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer was asked how it felt to have see so much offence from his team after struggling to score through nearly five periods just the night before.
 
"It was nice—the energy that we had on offence was great," Singer said. "Our forecheck was good, our cycle was good, all lines contributed; that was nice. We were getting chances and obviously to see the puck hit the twine was really nice after how we struggled with 40-plus shots last night."
 
"You never know how playoff games are going to go, that's for sure," he added. "You have the one last night where you're squeezing your sticks and can't score then you have one tonight where pucks are finding ways to get in for you so we'll take it and move on."
 
Western established early on that Saturday's deadlock was not going to be repeated on Sunday. De Coste opened the scoring just over two minutes in, roofing the puck on a nearly impossible angle over Guelph goaltender Andrew Loverock, before Clarke doubled the Mustangs' lead with a goal of his own only 16 seconds later.
 
The rest of the first frame played out with a quick, back-and-forth tempo. Loverock made a number of key saves to keep Guelph in the game and his efforts paid off with just 2:15 left on the clock, when Guelph's regular season leading scorer Nicklas Huard ripped a shot to the net and had it tipped by teammate Teal Burns, cutting Western's lead in half.
 
With momentum still on their side, Guelph came out strong to start the second, although it was Western who got back on the board early with Zach Harnden sprawling out to snap the puck past Loverock. Five minutes later, a nifty neutral-zone pass from Daniel Erlich led to another Mustangs' goal, as Erlich slipped the puck past the Guelph defender to set up another goal from Clarke on a 2-on-1 with Julian Cimadamore.
 
Western had a chance to add to their lead with a short 5-on-3 at the midway point of the period but found themselves unable to solve the Gryphons' penalty kill. Loverock did more than his part on the kill, making a number of nice saves including a flashy glove stop to close out the second infraction and ensure that the Gryphons would escape without a mark.  
 
Unice responded with a flashy glove save of his own just over two minutes later, robbing the Gryphons of a power play goal on a rebound chance in close. By the end of the second—with the score at 4-1 Western—Unice had turned aside 20 of 21 chances, compared to 33 of 37 from his Guelph counterpart.
 
With memories of Guelph's 7-6 regular season comeback win on February 1—a game that saw the Mustangs up 4-0 at one point—still fresh in the Mustangs minds, Western headed into the third period up by a similar score and hoping to deny a similar comeback. And they would do just that, fending off the Gryphons' offence before getting two shorthanded breakaway goals from Adam Stoykewych and Matt Marantz to seal the victory.
 
With Ryerson defeating Brock 6-3 in the only other OUA quarterfinal game Sunday night, the Mustangs are now set to take on the fourth-seeded Windsor Lancers in the OUA West Semi-Finals.  Singer spoke post-game about the matchup. 
 
"Well we kind of got our lunch handed to us by them earlier in the year, I think we'll remember that," Singer said. "They're a quality team with a great goaltender, great special teams. I mean it doesn't matter who you play this time of year, you've got to be real good.
 
"Hopefully we can move forward and be a little better next series because we'll need to be."
 
The OUA West Semi-Finals are set to start on Thursday, when the Mustangs will host the Lancers at Thompson Arena at 7:00 p.m.