LONDON, Ont. – Goals from six different players led the Western Mustangs to a 7-3 win over the Ottawa Gee-Gees on Saturday night at Thompson Arena.
Saturday's contest was a special one, as not only was it Homecoming on the Western campus, but Mustangs held a special pre-game ceremony to honour the late Chris McCauley. An emotional banner raising and ceremony to retire his jersey recognized his extraordinary career as a Mustang and beyond.
McCauley is the first ever Western hockey player to be honoured with a banner, and no Mustang from this point forward will wear his number five jersey. McCauley passed away from ALS earlier this year and was an advocate for ALS research. Donations to ALS research at Western can be made at
https://secure2.convio.net/uwo/donate.html.
Trevor Warnaar led the Mustangs scoring efforts on Saturday with two goals in the win, with
Chris Corbeil,
Kolten Olynek,
Steven Beyers,
Rylan Bechtel, and
Cody Brown each scoring a goal as well. A trio of players provided the offence for Ottawa, with Eric Locke, Connor Sills, and Marco Azzano each tallying a goal in the loss.
Despite a strong start by the Mustangs that saw them generate two good early scoring chances it was the Gee-Gees that were first on the board as Locke scored on a slap shot to take advantage of Ottawa's first power play opportunity of the night. Locke's marker at 9:22 of the first stood as the only goal of the period with the Gee-Gees heading into the intermission up 1-0.
Western came out strong in the second, with Warnaar scoring on the Mustangs second shot of the period to even the score at 1-1 just 27 seconds into the frame.
Corbeil scored nine minutes in to take the lead, finishing off some nice teamwork between him, captain #Jonathan Laser, and Olynek.
Unfazed, the Gee-gees tied the score up with a little over five minutes left in the period with Connor Sills managing to squeeze the puck past Dan Davies. Two minutes later, the Gee-Gees' Marco Azzano, with help from teammates Mathieu Newcomb and Michael Poirier, charged down the ice, to net a short-handed goal.
Western did not let Ottawa keep the lead for long, however, scoring 20 seconds later, with only seconds left of their power play. Olynek got his first OUA goal off a pass from teammate
Mitchell Brooks, to tie things up after 40 minutes.
Just as they had in the second, the Mustangs got out to a strong start in the final frame, scoring a little under five minutes in to take a 4-3 lead. Warnaar proided the go-ahead goal as he snagged the puck, airborne after bouncing off goalie Anthony Brodeur, and fired it over the line to put the Mustangs in front. Less than a minute later, Beyers had a clear path to the net, and took his time to go in on Brodeur and score the second goal of the period.
Ottawa pressed the attack after that, with Davies providing a solid presence in the Mustangs net on his way to a 45-save performance.
Bechtel provided another insurance marker with less than five minutes remaining before Brown iced it with an empty net goal at 18:25 to give the Mustangs a 7-3 win.
Coach Singer noted that "It was a real hard battle…Coming out with two points was very important…Lots to build on obviously after tonight's effort."
The Mustangs will look to build on their momentum on next week when they head back on the road to face the Guelph Gryphons on Thursday, October 26, at 7:30 p.m. Fans can catch all the action live on OUA.tv
