The Western Mustangs are riding a three-game winning streak as they continue to climb up the standings during their late season push.

Following their victory last Friday over the Queen's Gaels, the purple and white now find themselves in a tie for sixth place in the OUA standings. The playoff battle has remained heated with only a two-point gap between the fifth-placed Gaels and the ninth ranked Windsor Lancers, making Western's recent stretch of success that much more important.

The victory against Queen's snapped an eight-game winning streak for the Gaels, a team that had been playing very solid defence until allowing six goals to the Mustangs. The six goals all came in the second and third periods after the Gaels struck twice in 14 seconds in the opening frame en route to an early 2-0 lead.

The Mustangs responded with four unanswered goals, three of which came from forward Lyndsay Kirkham, giving her four hat tricks this season. She added two assists on the night to take over the scoring lead in the OUA and her line mates April Clark and Evra Levesque combined for an additional six points in the offensive explosion.

The Mustangs have scored at least four goals per contest during their three-game winning streak and will hope to continue finding the twine with a pair of matchups this weekend, including the Senior Day game on Sunday.

Western at Laurier – Saturday, February 11 at 2 p.m. – Watch live on OUA.tv

The first match of the weekend is a road game against the Golden Hawks, a team that the Mustangs shut out 2-0 in their first meeting of the season at the Thompson Arena in late October. The two Mustangs goals came less than four minutes apart in the second period and was all the support Shelby Ryan needed to earn the victory in her OUA debut. She has played well recently, backstopping the Mustangs to all three wins during their streak while allowing only two goals against per game.

The Golden Hawks will try to play spoiler for the Mustangs' playoff hopes; they themselves are last in the OUA and are coming off back-to-back shutout defeats in a recent trip to Nipissing and Laurentian.

Senior Day
Western vs. UOIT – on Sunday, February 12 at 4 p.m. – Watch live on OUA.tv

The Ridgebacks find themselves in tenth place in the OUA standings and will likely need to win the rest of their games to keep their playoff hopes alive after their most recent six-game losing streak. The Mustangs defeated the Ridgebacks 5-2 in Oshawa earlier in the season in a game that saw two Mustangs players (Clark and defenseman Brianna Iazzolino) score twice. Katie Jacobs earned the victory in net for the Mustangs after coming in relief of Ryan to start the second period.

UOIT has struggled offensively during their losing streak, scoring two or less goals in each of those games. Their last win came against the Laurentian Voyageurs in a game where they scored six goals, capping off a stretch of five consecutive games where they had scored at least four times. The Mustangs will hope that they can continue to execute on the offensive end against UOIT before taking on the Gaels for the second time in three weeks in a potential playoff matchup determining game.