Goaltender Mario Culina earned his first shutout as a Badger and the Brock men's hockey team snapped a four-game losing streak to clinch a playoff berth on Friday.

"Huge win tonight," said Culina. "I played good tonight and made some timely saves, but I thought the guys did a good job in front of me."

Culina made 44 saves to backstop the Badgers to a 4-0 win over the Lakehead Thunderwolves at Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.

"Outstanding game by Culina," said head coach Marty Williamson. "We were shakey in the first period, but played really well after. I think both teams brought their A-game tonight and I don't think it'll be much different tomorrow."

The Badgers improve to 13-11-2-0 (OUA West 11-11) and will face the Thunderwolves again on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. OUA.tv

After a scoreless first period, Ayden MacDonald opened the scoring at 4:39 of the second. Defenceman Skylar Pacheco added a power-play marker before the end of the frame.

In the third, Jared Marino scored at 1:20 while Christian Girhiny fired in an empty-net goal late in the game.

Tyler Rollo contributed two assists while Dexter Weber, Jordan Sambrook, Connor Walters and Connor Brown each added a helper.

Lakehead narrowly outshot Brock 44-43. Netminder Nic Renyard suffered the loss in between the pipes for Lakehead.