Box Score

Sometimes a break away from the everyday grind of hockey isn't a good thing.
 
Case in point - the 2014-15 edition of the Brock Badgers men's hockey team.
 
Murray Nystrom feels his team hasn't been the same since returning from the Christmas break, which in University hockey is a month away from game action.
 
Nystrom had an almost 20-minute long closed door meeting with his players after the game as the Badgers (9-11-2 OUA) dropped their third straight contest, losing 7-3 to the Western Mustangs (17-4-1 OUA) in a penalty filled affair in front of 657 fans at the Seymour-Hannah Centre Wednesday night.
 
Brock was down 4-1 before the game was even 17 minutes old and lost two players to game-misconducts.
 
"It's almost a mirror since all of our games since after Christmas," said Nystrom the veteran head coach of the Badgers.  "We're in parts of the game, we're even dominating at some stages, but we just can't seem to keep it at that level.  Whether we regress in positional play, or decision making, or discipline, something always seems to expose us, and against good teams like Western they take advantage of that.  Kudos to them."
 
Brock did cut the lead to 5-3 at the 15:05 mark of the third period, but the Mustangs put any hopes of a comeback away just over one minute later.
 
Noah Schwartz had two goals and two assists for Western who outshot the Badgers 38-34 overall.
 
Taylor Fielding, Gregory Jambrosich and Dan MacEachern found the back of the net for Brock who finished the game 1-for-6 on the powerplay.  The Mustangs were 2-for-8.  

Real Cormier took the loss in goal for Brock, while Greg Dodds picked up the win.  
 
"What we're going to do going forward is up to us.  This is a pattern that's occurred since the U of T game after Christmas and we've got to get righted for sure," added Nystrom.  "We need consistency not only game to game, period to period, but shift to shift." 
 
The Badgers now welcome Windsor Friday night.  Game time at the Seymour-Hannah Centre is 7:15 p.m.