It may have taken a few extra minutes, but the Mustangs made sure to keep their winning streak alive.
Playing its first contest of the season to go beyond regulation, the men’s hockey team narrowly edged the Windsor Lancers 3-2 in overtime to extend its winnimg streak to 14 games.
“The game could have gone either way tonight,” Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer said. “It was a playoff-style hockey game.”
The Lancers came out firing on all cylinders and were rewarded for their efforts just over six minutes in, when Brett Oliphant caught Western goaltender Keyvan Hunt out of position for a tap in, giving the Lancers an early lead.
“You don’t want to fall behind against a team like that,” Lancers head coach Kevin Hamlin said. “[The lead] was important because I think it challenged them to open up a little bit.”
Due to their stale first period performance, the Mustangs were forced to make some adjustments ahead of the second stanza.
“We talked about trying to keep the puck deep in their end and really trying to cycle,” Singer said.
Those changes helped the Mustangs fight back. Halfway through the second period they evened up the score, when Aaron Snow roofed his own rebound to put Western back in the game.
With less than three minutes to play in the middle frame, winger Keaton Turkiewicz fired home his team-leading 12th goal, sending the Mustangs to the dressing room with a 2-1 lead.
“That’s the one thing — good teams overcome,” Mustangs captain Luc Martin said. “We knew that if we just kept working hard, we would get the bounces.”
Determined not to concede the two points, the Lancers’ Steve Ferry tied the contest just over seven minutes into the third.
Though the Mustangs pushed hard for the winner late in the third, Lancers goaltender Jim Watt shut the door with a few stellar saves sending the game into overtime. Watt finished with 29 saves on 32 shots, including 11 in the third.
“Watt is the key to their game. He was great,” Singer said.
Three minutes into the extra frame, defenceman Geoff Killing fired a quick wrist shot for his seventh goal of the season, clinching the win for Western.
“We had to fight back and we weren’t just going to give in,” Killing said. “It’s good to get that one back for the team.”
“It was a huge win,” Martin added. “We kept our [winning] streak alive and it’s good to go into the break with this momentum.”
With no game on the schedule for a month, the Mustangs’ biggest challenge will be maintaining that momentum into the new year.
“Fourteen straight wins means nothing,” Killing said. “We need to come out in the second half and do the exact same thing.”
Singer will do what he can to keep the rust off his players over the break.
“[We’ll be] making sure that we can get a few practices in before they leave,” he said.
The Mustangs return to the ice on Jan 8 and 9 for a doubleheader against the third-place Lakehead Thunderwolves at Thompson arena.

Piotr Angiel/Gazette