TORONTO – The Lakehead Thunderwolves will have two chances on home ice to move on to the third round of the OUA men’s hockey playoffs.
Keighan Gerrie scored the go-ahead goal 3:37 into the third on Wednesday night at Varsity Arena, and Spencer Blackwell scored back-to-back tallies less than two minutes apart to earn the Thunderwolves a 5-3 win over the University of Toronto Varsity Blues in the opener of their best-of-three second round series.
Toronto, coming off a first-round win over Toronto Metropolitan, found themselves down 2-0 after one, thanks to goals by Ben Badalamenti and Geoff Dempster, but battled back to even the score with 6:44 to go in the second.
Kyle Potts got the Varsity Blues on the board at 6:59 of the middle frame, beating Max Wright on one of the 38 shots Toronto peppered LU goaltender Max Wright with, and Quinn Hanna tied a little over six minutes later.
The Wolves, winners of the OUA West division, had a first-round bye and didn’t appear to have to shake off much rust.
Jett Alexander took the loss in net for Toronto, stopping just 23 of 28 shots.
Cole Purboo had Toronto’s other goal, cutting the gap to two with just over nine minutes to go in regulation.
Lakehead can clinch the series on Friday night at Fort William Gardens. Game 3, if necessary, goes Saturday night in Thunder Bay.
