LONDON, Ont. – A strong offensive performance from the line combination of April Clark, Lyndsay Kirkham and Evra Levesque propelled the Western Mustangs to a 6-3 victory over the Queen's Gaels on Friday night at the Thompson Arena.

The third consecutive victory for the purple and white moves them up into a tie with the Gaels for fifth in the OUA standings, surpassing the Windsor Lancers by one point with one game fewer remaining.

The win also came without head coach Kelly Paton behind the bench as she is currently serving as a coach for team Canada at the Winder Universiade.
"[The] coaches were pretty nervous without our bench boss behind the bench with us," Mustangs' assistant coach Kalley Armstrong said, "but I think we've all been on the same page all year so we didn't really make any adjustments and just tried to stick to the hockey we've been playing all year."

The Mustangs opened the game with a sizeable shot advantage for most of the first period but struggled to find many high-quality scoring opportunities against a Queen's defence that allowed less than two goals per game during their winning streak. Despite the lack of high-quality chances of their own early on, the Gaels jumped out to a 2-0 lead with goals by Addi Halladay and Kyla Crouse taking place only 14 seconds apart.

Western would finally break through offensively in the following period, starting with Kirkham's first goal of the game on what seemed to be an innocent shot attempt from the side of the net.

The Mustangs continued to pepper Queen's goaltender Stephanie Pascal with shots throughout the frame to no avail until the final three minutes. Clark took the puck away from a defenseman at the blue line and fired a shot from the slot, going in the net off the crossbar to tie the game. Western would close out the second period strong when, for the second consecutive game, Kirkham scored with less than two seconds remaining to give her team momentum and the lead heading into the final period.

The offensive success continued for the Mustangs in the third with a hat-trick completing goal from Kirkham extending the lead to two midway through the period. The Gaels would respond with a power play goal from captain Jessica Wakefield on their fourth attempt of the game, but third-year forward Ali Beres restored the two-goal lead when her dump-in hopped passed Pascal.

Pulling the goaltender and earning a late power play opportunity did not help the Gaels close the gap as Clark would score her second goal of the game on the empty net to seal the 6-3 victory.

The Kirkham-Clark-Levesque line combined for 11 points.

"I think our whole line worked really well together," Kirkham commented on the line's chemistry, "we were moving the puck and we ended up getting it in the back of the net."

The Mustangs will look to extend their winning streak and continue their strong end to the regular season when they take on the Laurier Golden Hawks on Saturday, February 11 at 2 p.m. at the Waterloo Rec Complex.