LONDON, Ont. – Patrick Marsh scored a pair of goals and Andrew Hunt made 53 saves to lead Toronto past Western 3-1 in Game One of the OUA West Semi-Finals at Thompson Arena Wednesday night.
 
The underdog Varsity Blues, who have given Western trouble all year, have now won three straight after bouncing back from a Game One loss in the first round to eliminate York. Toronto may be the eighth seed, but they aren't playing like it at the moment.
 
"Where you finish [in the OUA], whether you win or lose, it doesn't matter—it's how you play on a given night," said Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer. "Toronto has had a great week against York and we've played them hard three times, been fortunate to get two one goal victories and tonight they were better than us—no doubt about it."
 
"They just keep it very simple," said captain David Corrente about what makes Toronto effective. "They don't give you much. We didn't have many odd-man rushes or many good chance opportunities. I mean they keep it very simple, they come back to the house there so you know you've just got to find a way to break them down."
 
Western outshot Toronto by a wide margin on Wednesday night, finishing with 26 more shots through sixty minutes. Hunt was excellent, especially with Delmas pulled to give Western an extra attacker in the last two minutes and thirty seconds of the game, but most of the shots didn't come in the form of solid scoring chances. Still, it's hard to put a negative spin on a 53-save performance.
 
"[Hunt's] been great for them all year—we knew that coming in," said Corrente. "He's a good goaltender. We didn't have the best scoring chances but nonetheless he did make some big saves for them. We're going to keep peppering him and get the puck in the net next game."
 
While Hunt faced more shots, the best saves of the night came from Peter Delmas. Many of Toronto's 28 shots were in the product of A-grade chances, highlighted by a pad save on a rebound in the first and a point-blank glove save on Christian Finch in the second. It was the second straight solid start for Delmas, who made 31 saves against Laurier last Friday.
 
"Both of our goalies have been great for us [in the playoffs, it's a great problem to have [and] we've had that problem all year," said Corrente. "[Delmas] still played excellent for us. A couple bounces here or there and pucks off of sticks go top corner so it's definitely not his fault or Dodds' fault at all so we've just got to pull together as a team here and regroup."
 
It would take a lucky bounce in front for Toronto to get on the board in the second period, as a Matthew Campagna pass from the corner glanced off Russell Turner and in. Western responded soon after with a goal off the rush from Alex Micallef, who took a drop pass from Shaun Furlong and beat Hunt clean, but Marsh answered for Toronto just 31 seconds later.
 
Marsh's second period marker—a bullet of a wrist shot off the post and in—ended up being the game-winner and he added another in the third for good measure. The sophomore forward put together 11 points through the final eight games of the regular season and has stayed hot in the playoffs, putting up five points and two game-winning goals in the past three games.
 
Each team had a power play goal on Wednesday, although neither marker was the product of consistent offensive zone pressure. In the end, the teams combined for 24 penalty minutes on 12 infractions in what turned out to be a pretty chippy affair. That may not sound like a lot, but the timing of some of the penalties helped change the momentum of the game.
 
"I think so, absolutely," said Corrente when asked whether the penalties took their toll. "[The series is] going to come down to special teams. If we can't capitalize on our power plays and if we can't kill our penalties we're in big trouble here."
 
Game Two will take place Friday in Toronto, as the Varsity Blues get a chance to sweep the series in their home arena. Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m. and the Mustangs will look to get some offence on the board early to take some pressure off late.
 
"It's a new day—we have to learn from this just like any other game," said Singer. "These men have played lots of playoff series, been behind one, behind two maybe. You don't move on until you've won two games so we would have loved to have gotten the win tonight but we'll have to learn from some of the errors we made and be a lot better on Friday."