London, ON – The Mustangs Men's Hockey season ended on Sunday afternoon following a 5-2 loss to the Lakehead Thunderwolves in their opening round OUA Playoff series.
"It's a tough way to see the season end, we were battling right at the end of the season, potentially looking at a first-round bye," said Mustangs Head Coach Clarke Singer "We were led by our great senior class. it's been a hell of a year, a long year. They give so much, so I'm really disappointed we weren't able to get the job done."
GAME RECAP
The Mustangs opened the scoring midway through the 1st period when Lawson Sherk took a drop pass from Jacob Santerre just inside the Lakehead blueline and shot a wrister from the slot to give Western a 1-0 lead.
The Mustangs held the lead through the first intermission.
In the second period, Lakehead would tie the game up just over six minutes into the frame on the powerplay,
Just under a minute and a half later, Western would regain their lead when Zach Power sent a cross ice pass to Eric Van Impe, his shot hit the Lakehead goalie and bounce towards the opposite faceoff dot and Power was on the doorstep to send it into an open net and regain the lead at 2-1.
Just after the midway mark of the period, Lakehead evened up the game at 2-2, and it would remain that way through the end of the period.
In the third period, Lakehead took a penalty at the 11:40 mark to put Western on the man advantage. After the Mustangs put some pressure in the Lakehead zone, a blocked shot ended up in the neutral zone and the Thunderwolves Josh Van Unen would finish off the shorthanded marker to give them the lead.
Lakehead would add two empty netters late in the period to take a 5-2 win.
"It's playoffs, going into this weekend, I think there were 12 U SPORTS playoff games and nine of them were one-goal games. Six of them were overtime games. So it's just that's how it is. It's so competitive and so close," said Singer "We were a bounce on an empty net away from winning the series 2-0 yesterday, right? And then they come back and find a way,"
The Mustangs finish the season with a 16&12 record in the regular season and 17&14 overall.
