A tough battle is all that can be truly said between the Windsor Lancers and York Lions on Friday night in Toronto.  Coming into this one the Lancers were riding an impressive 9-game winning streak which they knew was going to be tough to sustain with a hungry Lions team wanting to come out of the gate hard on home ice this weekend.  The Lions were able to accomplish that feat with a hard fought 3-2 OT win over the Lancers. 
 
Brady Pataki and Brady Hinz scored for the blue and gold while Xavier Pouliet, Brock McLeod, and Michael Horon scored for York. Nathan Torchia had 28 saves for the Lancers on 31 shots faced in the overtime loss. 
 
GAME FLOW
The first period saw lots of action on the ice at the Canlan Sports Arena with both teams trading scoring chances and putting difficult shots on goal for both Torchia and the York netminder Cole Ceci to turn aside.  Both goaltenders made incredible saves to keep their teams in the game all throughout the first twenty minutes however it was not until 18:42 when York's captain Pouliet opened the scoring with his first goal of the season putting a shot past Torchia to give the Lions a 1-0 lead heading into the locker room. 
 
Coming out of the gate in the second frame, York felt motivated by the late first period goal from their captain and the red and white were able to find another guy to light up the lamp at 1:25 as McLeod put away his second of the season and up the York lead to 2-0 in front of the home crowd. 
 
The Lancers remained engaged despite being down two as they were able to find a shot to beat Ceci off the stick of Pataki who broke the York goalie's chance of a shutout at 19:25 of the second period.  Pataki's goal trimmed the Lions lead in half heading after 40 minutes of play.
 
Presumably after a great team chat in the second intermission, the Lancers were inspired to keep fighting to maintain their alive 9-game winning streak not wanting to forfeit it to the Lions they were able to find a way to knot things up at 5:07 of the third with Hinz's goal off a juicy rebound to restore the Lancers confidence and make the game interesting at 2-2. 
 
The Lancers were able to cavalierly come back later in the game to erasing the once two-goal deficit and require an extra period for overtime.  However, the valiant comeback effort came up just a bit short with Horon's heroics in overtime which allowed the Lions to pounce on the opportunity to heartbreakingly snap the Lancers' streak and close out the game in OT.
 
UP NEXT
Both squads will now rest up for the night and be back in action for a rematch tomorrow afternoon at 4:15PM in Toronto for part two of the doubleheader weekend series between the Lions and Lancers.  Fans can tune into OUATv to watch the live action and follow along on social media with live updates of the game from Toronto.