THUNDER BAY – SPORTS – The Lakehead Thunderwolves staked a two-goal lead, but couldn’t hang on as the Guelph Gryphons skated away with a 6-3 victory in front of 1679 fans at the Fort William Gardens on Saturday night.
In a turnaround from the night before, Lakehead came out very strong and dominated the play early on.
Dillon Donnelly got the only goal of the first period 7:34 into the game, with Kelin Ainsworth and Cody Alcock picking up the assists.
Ainsworth and Jake Ringuette set up Carson Dubchak who scored on a Lakehead power play at 1:17 of the second period to give the Wolves a 2-0 lead.
Michael Stevens got Guelph on the board midway through the middle frame, and then at 13:12 Trevor Morbeck evened the score when he slammed home a rebound after Wolves’ goalie Devin Green made a nice initial save while the Gryphons held the man-advantage.
Guelph went ahead 3-2 on a shot from the outside the blue line by Emmanuel Gialedakis at 7:02 of the third, and then Robert Lepine scored twice from sharp angles to put the Gryphons ahead 5-2 with less than five minutes to play.
Justin Sefton responded for Lakehead 20 seconds later by firing the puck past Guelph netminder Keith Hamilton, with the Billy Jenkins getting the helper to cut the Gryphons’ lead to two.
Lakehead pulled Green for an extra attacker in the waning moments, but Cody Thompson scored an empty-netter with 31 seconds remaining to ice the game for Guelph.
Total shots on goal for the night were 37-27 for the Thunderwolves.
Lakehead went 1-for-4 on the power play, while Guelph was 1-for-3.
The Molson three stars of the game were:
Robert Lepine, Guelph
Justin Sefton, Lakehead
Cody Thompson, Guelph
The loss evens the Wolves OUA record out at 6-6-1, and drops Lakehead into seventh-place in the ten-team West Division.
The Thunderwolves will travel to Laurier next weekend to play their last two games before the Christmas exams break.
