LONDON, Ont. – Two first period goals gave the York Lions a lead they wouldn't relinquish as they defeated the Western Mustangs 4-2 on Friday night at Thompson Arena.
 
"I thought we had lots of rust…we hadn't played since that early December game against Waterloo, and York was down East and played two games against UNB last week. They were a lot sharper than we were, and that showed," said Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer.
 
"Again, we got behind early. That's been a problem of ours, not being ready to play right off the hop, and if we want to win we've got to change that. We can't be behind 2-0 and fight back every time. I was happy with the character and the effort we showed to come back, even late in the third we had an opportunity to get it to 4-3, we miss an empty net, and had a couple of good opportunities but couldn't capitalize."
 
The loss moves the Mustangs to 6-10-2 on the season keeping them in eighth place in the OUA West, one point ahead of Waterloo. York improves to 12-5-2 on the year and remain in second in the West.
 
York got on the board early, scoring just over 90 seconds apart towards the middle of the first period to jump out in front. Four different players tallied goals for the Lions, with Trevor Petersen, Nick Zottl, Reid Jackman, and Greg Milner all marking their names on the scoresheet.
 
Luke Karaim and Rob Polesello provided the offence for Western, scoring their seventh and sixth goals of the season respectively to keep them atop the Mustangs goal scoring leaderboard.  
 
Mack Shields got the win in net for the Lions, turning aside 17 shots, while Greg Dodds stopped 40 shots for the Mustangs.
 
The Lions opened the scoring seven minutes into the first period, with Petersen picking up the puck in the slot before hitting the back of the net to give the visitors an early lead. They wouldn't wait long before extending that lead, with Nick Zottl wiring a hard wrist shot into the back of the cage to make it 2-0 for York.
 
York kept their momentum going to start the second period, with forward Reid Jackman going top shelf to make it 3-0 for the Lions.
 
The Mustangs were unfazed by the three-goal deficit, with Karaim getting the purple and white on the board a little more than two minutes later off of assists from Matt Marantz and Andrew Goldberg.
 
Polesello pulled the Mustangs to within one only 33 seconds later, firing a shot over the glove of Shields with assists going to Trent Ouellette and Ray Huether.
 
The torrid start to the period continued with Milner slipping a puck past Dodds a little before the nine-minute mark to re-establish the Lions two-goal advantage. Milner's goal proved to be the final marker of the game, with York taking a 4-2 win.
 
"We kind of came out slow and that set the tone for the rest of the game. We tried to crawl back in it, but sometimes it's just too little too late," said Marantz. "We had good moments during the game, but we need to put it together for 60 minutes."
 
Next up for the Mustangs is a pair of home games as they'll welcome the Ryerson Rams to Thompson Arena on Friday, January 13, before following that up with a showdown with the Brock Badgers on Saturday, January 14. Game time is set for 7 p.m. for both contests, and fans can tune in live on OUA.tv