GUELPH – SPORTS – The Lakehead Thunderwolves began a three-game road trip with a 3-1 loss to the Guelph Gryphons at the Gryphon Centre on Friday night.
Guelph controlled the play for most of the first period, out-chancing the Wolves and testing Lakehead goalie Nic Renyard frequently, but he was cool as a cucumber from the get-go and kept it up for the duration of the contest.
The Wolves had their scoring opportunities as well but were unable to get anything behind Guelph netminder Jason Da Silva at the other end of the ice and the game remained scoreless after 20 minutes.
Lakehead’s forecheck improved in the second period, slowing down the Gryphons’ attack, but Cody Thompson broke the scoring deadlock on a breakaway by beating Renyard high on the blocker side with 1:50 remaining in the middle frame.
Daniel Del Paggio, who was Lakehead’s best forward in the game, evened the score with a wrist shot that rocketed past Da Silva high on the glove side 5:50 into the third.
Manny Gialedakis got the winner for Guelph with four minutes left in the game by finishing off a nifty tic-tac-toe play that Renyard had no chance on.
Lakehead had a power play opportunity late in the game and then pulled Renyard for another attacker, but Andres Kopstals iced the game for the Gryphons with an empty-netter at the 18:52 mark.
For the night, Lakehead went 0-for-4 on the power play, while Guelph was 0-for-2.
Total shots on goal in the game were 37-27 for the Gryphons.
The loss breaks Lakehead’s four-game winning streak, but the Wolves will look to get back into the win column when they take on the York Lions at the Canlan Ice Sports Arena tomorrow night beginning at 7:00 PM.
