The Brock Badgers' men's hockey team earned a 3-1 victory in Game 1 of their OUA semifinal matchup against the TMU Bold on Thursday, Feb. 29 at Canada Games Park.
Third-year centre Tyler Burnie earned the game-winning goal for the Badgers. First-year goaltender Connor Ungar stopped 23 of 24 shots faced in the win.
"It's exciting to be in games like that against opponents we have a lot of respect for," said head coach TJ Manastersky. "I am just so proud of the competitive standard that our guys keep meeting and raising. It's just so fun to still be one of eight teams in the country still playing hockey and we have an opportunity on Saturday to get another win".
Five minutes into the first period, a Ryan Thompson shot from the point find its way on net, with the puck rebounding directly to third year forward Christophe Cote. The Business major got enough of the puck to open the scoring for the Badgers. The Bold looked for a response but a well-timed block from first year forward Matthew Duarte negated the equalizer from TMU. Throughout the opening frame, the Badgers controlled the possession of the puck, outshooting TMU 11-7.
The Badgers continued to drive the play in the opening minutes of the second period. A goal was called off for the Badgers nearly four minutes into the period, after it was deemed the Bold's goaltender was interfered with. Some pushback from TMU came midway through the second period, but a point-blank save from Ungar kept Brock in the lead for the time being. The Badgers thought they had scored again late in the middle frame, but this time it was deemed that the net had come off its post before the puck crossed the line. With just over three minutes to go in the second, Daniil Grigorev found TMU's equalizer after a pass from Artem Duda on the blueline found its way to the front of the Badgers' net.
It was a quick response from Brock in the third period, as third year forward Jacob Roach made a perfect pass on a 2-on-1 to Burnie, who squeezed the puck over the pad of TMU goaltender Kai Edmonds, putting Brock up 2-1. Both teams traded three penalties each in the third period, but the score remained the same. With under a minute to go and scrambling for an equalizer, the Bold coughed the puck up to second-year forward Jordan Stock, who made no mistake icing the game with a empty-net goal.
After three playoff games, Ungar owns a .948 save percentage, allowing just five goals in 212 minutes of action in the post-season.
"You look at the division, the two best goalies are here in this series, and you look at the previous round, it was the four best goalies, " Manastersky added. "You need to have goaltending to able to compete at the national stage."
Up next, the Brock Badgers' men's hockey team (21-7-0) travels to Toronto for Game 2 of their OUA semifinal matchup against the TMU Bold (19-8-1) on Saturday, Mar. 2 at 6:15 p.m. You can follow along on OUA.tv.
