Box Score The Windsor Lancers Men's Hockey team split their weekend series against the Laurier Golden Hawks and clinched a playoff spot in the process.
On Friday night, the Lancers earned a big 2-1 overtime victory over the Laurier Golden Hawks at Windsor Arena. On Saturday evening, the Golden Hawks came back to defeate the Lancers 7-1 to split the weekend series.
Despite the loss, the Lancers clinched a playoff berth on Saturday night after the Brock Badgers were defeated 6-4 by the Waterloo Warriors.
Against Laurier, game one was a physical battle as both teams competed hard early on. With hardly any whistles and very few penalties, the game remained scoreless through two periods.
Early in the third, Windsor finally got on the board as Kyle Nishizaki jumped on a rebound to put it in the top corner for the 1-0 lead.
Midway through the period, Laurier's Jeff Borrows tied the game as he fired one into the Lancer end that bounced past Lancer goaltender Jim Watt for the tying goal.
Watt was unfazed by the bad bounce as he came back strong through the final minutes of the third period and into overtime.
In the extra frame, Mark Thorburn capitalized on an opportunity as he knocked in a rebound off of the Laurier netminder to give Windsor the win and two needed points in the playoff race.
In game two on Saturday night, the Lancers were defeated by the Golden Hawks 7-1 at Windsor Arena.
The Lancers now sit at 10-13-4 in conference play and hold the seventh spot in the OUA West Division. They are three points ahead of the UOIT Ridgebacks who currently hold the eighth spot.
The top eight teams in the OUA Western conference qualify for the playoffs.
On Saturday, the Golden Hawks scored the only goal of the first period as Ryan Bellows recorded a powerplay marker to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.
In the second period, Laurier took over the game as they scored four answered goals to take a commanding 5-0 lead after two.
The Lancers would get their lone goal from Christian Steingraber in the third period before falling 7-1 to the Golden Hawks.
Lancer goaltender Jim Watt allowed 4 goals on 21 shots before giving way to Frank Dayus in the second period.
Windsor will play their final regular season game before the playoffs next Friday when they travel to Waterloo to take on the University of Waterloo Warriors.
