TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. – Powered by two goals from Mathieu Lemay, the UQTR Patriotes ended the Mustangs push for the playoffs on Saturday afternoon, defeating Western 5-3 on at the Colisée de Trois-Rivières
With the loss, Western falls to 8-16-2 and has been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, marking the first time the Mustangs will miss the post-season since 1999. The Patriotes will improve to 15-8-3 with the win, moving into fifth place in the OUA East.
The Mustangs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period but UQTR tied things up in the first three minutes of the second. Lemay scored his second of the game at the end of the period to gift the Patriotes a lead they would never relinquish.
The first period started off looking promising for the purple and white. In a five-minute span,
Spenser Cobbold and
Connor Chartier each scored for Western to shock the Patriotes and quickly open up a two-goal lead.
This prompted UQTR to switch goalies and bring in Nicolas Lachance, who stopped 15 of 16 shots he faced in the game. Countering for the Mustangs was
Greg Dodds, who had another strong game in net, standing tall to make 34 saves.
Just 17 seconds in to the second frame, Marc-Olivier Mimar scored for UQTR to cut the Western lead in half. Around two minutes later, Lemay scored his first of the night to tie the score. He would add one more at the end of the period to put his team up 3-2.
Carl-Antoine Delisle doubled the UQTR lead five minutes into the third period, and Western was never able to recover, despite
Rob Polesello bringing them within one with a snipe on a two-man advantage midway through the period.
The Mustangs would press hard for the equalizer for the rest of the game, but Gabryel Paquin-Boudreau scored on an empty net with less than a minute remaining to cement the 5-3 win.
Western finishes its season next weekend with two games on the road at Lakehead. The first game takes place Friday night at 7:30, with the second set for Saturday night at the same time. Fans can tune in to both contests live on OUA.tv
