The Windsor Lancer men's hockey team wrapped up their 2024-25 OUA regular season on the road up in Waterloo over the weekend taking on the Waterloo Warriors on Friday night and the Laurier Golden Hawks on Saturday evening. 
 
Windsor suffered a 1-0 overtime loss to Waterloo on Friday while on Saturday the blue and gold bounced back with a 6-4 win over Laurier to officially earn a spot in the postseason. 
 
WEEKEND STATS
Nathan Torchia made 27 saves for the Lancers in Friday night's heartbreaking extra period loss to the Warriors. 
 
The Lancers goal scorers on Saturday were Aaron Shaw, Keegan McMullen, Travis Hensrud, Matt McNamara, Dylan Schives, and Logan Linklater.  McNamara led the Lancers with a three-point outing in the win on Saturday over the Golden Hawks.
 
Max Donoso made 29 saves on Saturday's victory over Laurier as well standing tall between the pipes for the blue and gold.
 
FRIDAY GAME FLOW
The Lancers outshot the Warriors 11-10 in the opening period on Friday but both goaltenders stood tall in their respective creases as Waterloo's netminder Matt Onuska was just as solid as Torchia at the end of the ice which held true throughout the first 60 minutes of regulation play.
 
Windsor peppered Onuska 12-7 in the third period but despite those attempts overtime was triggered where Waterloo was able to find success at 1:13 into the extra period Simon Rose was the hero of the night for the Warriors to lift them past the Lancers 1-0 finding a way to finally crack one past Torchia. 
 
SATURDAY GAME FLOW
A barrage of goals came from both sides throughout the first period.  Laurier's Patrick Brown got the scoring party started at 2:37 of the opening frame to give the hosts a 1-0 edge on the visitors.
 
Kallaway Mercer scored the Golden Hawks second goal at 4:54 to double Laurier's lead to make it 2-0 up on the Lancers getting another one by Donoso. 
 
Windsor would finally respond at 13:26 of the first to cut the deficit in half down to one with Shaw's marker that came from McNamara to make it 2-1 on the scoreboard.
 
McNamara would assist on the Lancers equalizing goal that came from McMullen at 15:12 of the first to stalemate the game at 2-2 heading into the first intermission break.
 
In the second period, Hensrud lit the lamp at the 9:24 mark to earn the Lancers their first lead of the contest making it 3-2 from McMullen and Will Ennis drawing assists.
 
The blue and gold struck again at 15:55 on the power play with McNamara's unassisted marker to make it 4-2 Lancers up on Laurier.
 
Schives scored to make it 5-2 Windsor from Salvator Collora at 17:54 to add one more to their total before the buzzer went to end the second period. 
 
Samuel Williamson responded for Laurier early into the third period at 1:59 to make it 5-3 with the lead still in Windsor's favour.
 
The Lancers would grow their lead to double up once more again with Linklater's goal at 3:01 of the third from Johnny Ulicny to add an insurance marker and make the game 6-3.
 
Thomas Lenart lit the lamp for Laurier one last time on the night at 8:23 to try and get the hosts back into the contest and make the match 6-4. 
 
Donoso closed out the remainder of regular season play with the remaining shots faced from the Golden Hawks to ground them and end the game with a win.
 
UP NEXT
The Lancers will now face the Waterloo Warriors in a best-of-three series in round one of the OUA playoffs. Windsor will host the Warriors on Wednesday, February 19th at 7:00pm, before heading to Waterloo for game two on Friday, February 21st at 7:00pm. Game three will take place in Windsor, if necessary, on Saturday, February 22^nd at 7:30pm.
 
All games can be viewed live on oua.tv, and tickets for game one are available at goLancers.ca/tickets.