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… and stun Lakehead 7-4

February 9, 2012
By Greg Colgan

After playing each other four times in the last three weeks, there’s no love lost between the Lakehead Thunderwolves and the Western Mustangs.

In a penalty filled game, the was in full force as the Mustangs won 7-4 at Thompson Arena on Saturday night.

The teams combined for 23 penalties totalling 65 minutes in penalties.

“It’s always been a huge rivalry and this season we’ve played really well against them,” Keaton Turkiewicz, Mustangs forward, said. “It proves to every guy that if we can beat the second best team in our [division], we can beat anyone when we play our game.”

Western won the previous three games against Lakehead, with goalie Josh Unice posting shutouts in all three.

Lakehead outshot Western 41-21, but Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer was happy his team did what they had to do to win a game that he felt could’ve gone either way.

“I’ve told the guys all year you’ve got to find a way to win,” Singer said. “Despite being outshot tonight, we found a way to win and obviously Josh did a great job in net.”

Western jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first period, following which, both teams scored two goals in the second period to make it 5-3.

The Mustangs put the game out of reach in the third with another two goals.

Western would get goals from Yashar Farmanara, Zach Harnden, Turkiewicz, Steve Reese and Jason Furlong, while Matt Caria, Trevor Gamanche, Brennan Menard and Andrew Wilkins lit the lamp for Lakehead.

Western used their breakout speed to their advantage throughout the game, which frustrated Thunderwolves head coach Joel Scherban.

“We weren’t very good off the rush and they scored six goals off the rush, which is unacceptable,” Scherban said.

Although this game was closer than the previous three against Western, Scherban was unimpressed with his team’s play against a potential playoff opponent.

“In the regular season Western is a better team than us. We need to be better as we head into the playoffs,” Scherban said. “We’d be fooling ourselves if we thought we deserved to win.”

The Mustangs clinched first place in the Ontario University West division last week against Lakehead. Though the game was largely meaningless for Western, heading towards the playoffs, they want to keep their momentum.

“We’ve got a lot of playoff time ahead of us, hopefully, and there’s a good chance we could face Lakehead,” Turkiewicz said. “We don’t want to sit back and be happy clinching first place because if we coast into the playoffs you can’t just turn a switch on.”

Since clinching last week, the extra games have also allowed the Mustangs to tinker with their game before they head into the playoffs.

On the weekend they used a five forward power play with Turkiewicz, Kevin Baker, Tyler Peters, Harnden and Reese, which went 4-for-18 over two games.

“We always want a real effective power play come playoff time and we’ve got a real good group of five forwards,” Singer said. “We’ve got some work to do with it, but it’s something we’re going to look at over the next couple of weeks.”

Also impressive was Harnden, who has been a Lakehead killer this year. The Thunder Bay native has five goals and two assists in four games against the Thunderwolves.

“It has a lot to do with them being one of the better teams in the league and we all come to the rink and want to play harder,” Harnden said. “It’s not hard to get ready for a game when you play the second best team in the conference—you want to win.”

With only two games left in the regular season, the Mustangs are focusing on preparing for a long playoff run when the first round starts two weeks from now.

“[Lakehead is] a real good hockey team and we’ve had their number this year, but we’re not too concerned about them,” Singer said. “We’re concerned about getting better over the next few weeks and playing hard against our first round opponent.”

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