LONDON, Ont. – In a game that could have gone either way, an early third period goal from Dylan Staples proved to be the winner as Western fell 3-1 to Nipissing on Saturday night at Thompson Arena.
 
The Mustangs fired 45 shots at Lakers goalie Domenic Graham, compared to just 23 shots for Nipissing. But the netminder stood just tall enough to lead his team victory. It was a promising showing for Western. They spent most of the game in the offensive zone, including repeated pressure over seven powerplays, but frequently failed to finish.
 
"When you generate 45 shots and allow as few scoring chances as we did tonight it's overall a pretty good game," said head coach Clarke Singer, "but when you look at the final score it doesn't look like that and obviously were in a position right now where we gotta do enough to get points and we didn't do that tonight."
 
With the loss, Western drops to 5-8-2 on the season, while Nipissing improves to 5-9-1.
 
Western dominated the first period and emerged with a 1-0 lead on a shorthanded goal.
 
With time in the defensive zone, Jonathan Laser flipped the puck high and found Cole Benson waiting at the opposite blueline. Benson had a clear break, and scored after feigning going to his backhand on a deke.
 
Nipissing tied things early in the second when Colin Campbell received a drop pass in the slot and beat Dodds on a wrist shot.
 
The Lakers struck again three minutes into the third period when Dylan Staples put a backhander through Dodds' five hole. Brock Morrison added an empty-net goal to seal the deal.
 
Defenceman Jed Rusk picked up an assist on Benson's goal and sees a path for improvement for Western's goal scoring.
 
"We just gotta keep getting those shots on net. We gotta get more bodies to the net, screen the goalie. I think [Lakers goalie] Graham saw a lot of the shots coming and if we can get a guy in front so he doesn't see those shots maybe they'll go in for us."
 
The Mustangs next game is at Laurier on Wednesday, with a scheduled start time of 11 a.m.