The Western Mustangs' men's hockey team have punched their ticket to Nationals in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a convincing 5 – 2 win over the Concordia Stingers for the bronze medal in the OUA.
In an unbelievable playoff run by the Mustangs thus far, the 8
th seeded team in the OUA West beat the number 1 and 2 seeded teams, the Toronto Varsity Blues and the Ryerson Rams respectively, before ultimately losing in the third game to the Guelph Gryphons. This resulted in today's play-in game between the Mustangs and the Stingers for not only third place in the OUA, but a spot at Nationals to win it all.
The speed of the game was explosive in the first period, as Concordia, despite an 8-hour bus ride the day before from Montreal, set a blistering pace for Western to match. That rewarded them with the first goal of the game as the Stingers potted one past Western goaltender Luke Peresinni off of a scrambling change from the Western bench. The Mustangs were outshot in the first, which would continue for the entirety of the game, but Peresinni put on a complete show in net for the Mustangs to secure their win, as he ended up saving 45 of 47 shots.
Head coach Clarke Singer proclaimed, "Guys did a great job, but obviously with Luke – what can I say? We've been talking about him all year, and he comes up in the biggest game of the year with his best game. He was the best player on the ice."
Then, with just 23 seconds left on the clock in the first period, Mustangs forward Stephen Desrocher sent the home crowd roaring as he tied up the game.
Desrocher commented after the game, "[Franco] Sproviero found me and I was trying to join the rush. I got it towards the net, [Sean] Montgomery was driving to the net hard and took his defenceman with him and I was just lucky enough to tap it into the empty net off the rebound."
That game-tying goal was a huge relief, and that sentiment was reiterated by the room after the game.
"It's just momentum," said Singer. "Momentum is tough to get and it's tough to hang onto. [If we were down 1- 0] it would have taken us another 20 minutes. That goal got us going, got the emotion going, got guys on their toes, got guys forechecking, feeling good about their game, and that's what we're trying to do. We don't play Concordia very much, so there's a feeling out process, because you don't know much about them, and that kind of got us to forget about the feeling out process and just play our game."
Desrocher added, "We were saying on the bench we wanted to get one before the end of the period to kind of get momentum. It started with a huge hit from Kyle Pettit, who absolutely hammered a guy and that got the bench going, it just gave us the energy to get out there and put one in."
In the second frame, Anthony Stefano kept the Mustangs' momentum going as he and Mustangs forwards Cordell James and Kenny Huether put the home team up by two.
"I just kind of backchecked and lifted the guy's stick, and James made a good play, he called for it and threw it over to Huether, and Huether made an amazing pass and I just had to put it in the empty net at that point," said Stefano.
Huether was quick to get a goal of his own, as just over a minute later, he sent a rocket of a one-timer on the powerplay past Stingers netminder Kyle Jessiman to the raucous cheers of the home crowd.
The Mustangs entered the second intermission up 3 – 1, with nothing left to do but bring home the bronze - and they sure did.
Midway through the final frame, it was Huether again who scored, this time off of the faceoff to put a 3-goal cushion between the Mustangs and Stingers.
Singer, addressing Huether's play after the game, said, "He's had a good year this year but an exceptional playoff, and I think he's been one of our best guys in the playoffs, and one of the top guys on the ice for either team. He gets some big goals like the power play marker with the one timer and the fourth goal to just give us a little bit more breathing room. Just a great player, and a great kid for us."
Though Concordia would eventually get a goal back on a 6 on 3 power play with their goalie pulled, Cordell James would seal the deal with an empty-netter to make the score 5 – 2, and send the team to Nationals.
On the 5 goals scored and the team's overall effort, Singer commented, "The best one for me was the empty netter for sure, that took a little bit of the stress off. Credit to Concordia for coming down here, 8-hour bus trip yesterday and then having to play an important game. They outshot us here, especially in the third, and we were on our heels, and they're a good hockey team. But we're happy – we talked about earning this trip and I thought the guys did."
The 2020 USPORTS University Cup will be held from March 12-15 in Halifax and will be hosted by the Acadia Axemen. The games will be available on Sportsnet 360 and TVA Sports, but stay tuned to hear more about ways to watch the Mustangs try to win it all.
