LONDON, Ont.—The Laurier Golden Hawks' distributed offence secured their 5-1 win over the Western Mustangs Friday afternoon at Thompson Arena.
"It was one of those nights, we just couldn't get anything going," said Mustangs' head coach Clarke Singer. "You know, give full value to Laurier for the win, they played hard, they did a lot of great things and their special teams was very good...we didn't have much five on five, didn't have much on the special teams, allowed a power play goal, just not a great game for us."
Defenceman Rylan Bechtel was Western's lone goal scorer of the day, netting his fourth of the season.
Laurier's offence was provided by Will Cook, Jeremy Pullara, Mack Graham, and Jake Henderson. Cook scored his 6th of the season and is now tied as the top point provider for his team. Pullara netted his fifth, Graham secured his first and second OUA goals, and Henderson scored his second of the season.
The crowd was energized with students from 23 local schools, cheering the Mustangs on for the annual school day game.
"It's obviously more fun," said Bechtel. "You get the crowd into it, you feel like you're more into the game as well, so it's better."
Four minutes into the first frame, the Golden Hawks rushed down the ice shorthanded, so Mustang Stephen Desrocher got called for a slashing penalty to stop their opportunity, securing almost two full minutes of four on four play.
Nine seconds into Desrocher's penalty, Laurier forward Cook marked the first of the day with help from teammates Kyle Jenkins and Danny Hanlon.
Laurier scored a power play goal three minutes into the second period. Pullara got the puck from Hanlon and extended the Golden Hawk lead to 2-0 over the Mustangs.
Four minutes later, Western goaltender Luke Peressinni was pulled to the left side of his net. The puck was sitting on his right, and Laurier rookie Graham swept it in.
In the second half of the frame, the Mustangs secured a five on three and locked down the offensive zone. Stopping all Laurier efforts to clear the puck, Western passed the puck around, before Bechtel fired a slapshot off at Tyler Fassl. The Laurier goalie managed to get a piece of the puck, but ultimately could not stop it.
"On the power play, we were just trying to get movement," said Bechtel. "The first one-timer, I thought it actually went in, but I guess it hit the post and came back around. I took another one and it went in finally."
With eight minutes left in the final frame, two Laurier players rushed down the ice together, and Graham beat Western's defence and Peressinni, to net his second of the day.
Laurier rookie Henderson blazed down the ice without Mustang interference with four minutes to go. His shot from the circles whistled past the other players and bounced out of the net to secure the Golden Hawks' 5-1 lead.
In their last match-up, Western lost to Laurier in a shootout. They were unable to come back with the victory this time, losing their seven-game winning streak. They remain fourth in the West with 23 points and a record of 11-7-1-1.
Laurier broke out of their two-game rut, and is now tied with Guelph and Waterloo with 17 points and a record of 8-10-1-1.
"I thought a couple times in the game it looked like we were going to be able to claw back," said Singer. "I think we tried to be a little too fancy...I thought we had a really good stretch of playing well, had a lot of things go our way, had great goaltending, and tonight we just couldn't get anything going. But that's hockey. We've just got to turn the page real quick and get ready for tomorrow night."
The Mustangs will return to home ice tomorrow night at 7:00pm to face the York Lions. Fans can catch the action live at OUA.tv
