WATERLOO, Ont. - The Laurier Golden Hawks found themselves back in the win column after a 4-3 win at home on Saturday night against the #8 TMU Bold - their second straight this season against the nationally-ranked program.
           
Sullivan Sparkes opened the scoring for the Golden Hawks after he tapped home a rebound off a Declan Graham opportunity from the hash marks, which Sparkes had created when he broke into the TMU zone. 

Laurier found themselves on the penalty kill three times in the first but shut TMU's power-play down each time. Like the penalty kill, netminder Christian Propp also came up huge and stopped all twenty shots he faced in period.

The Golden Hawks doubled their lead after Caleb Rich fed the puck in front to a streaking Adrian Nabuurs, who one-timed the puck past the blocker of TMU goaltender Garrett Forrest. 

The Bold's William Portokalis cut the lead in half after a Laurier power-play expired with just over a minute and a half left in the second.

Evan Benwell re-established Laurier's two-goal lead just before the end of the second when he beat Forrest for his third goal in as many games. 

TMU struck first in the third as Aleks Dimovski reached around Propp to tuck the puck into the back of the net to make it 3-2.

Chayse Herrfort scored the eventual game-winner a minute later after finishing off a nice backdoor pass from Patrick Brown. The assist was Brown's fifth point in five games.

TMU scored once more on a final effort in the dying seconds of the third, but that's as close as they would get as the Golden Hawks won for the fourth five games. 

The Golden Hawks split the weekend, losing 6-2 against Brock Friday night, but redeemed themselves in a game against one of the top-ranked teams in the country. 

"The boys were excellent tonight," said Laurier's Interim Head Coach & Manager of Hockey Operations Kevin Forrest. "It's important to respond after what I thought was a really bad stinker last night the way they did against a tough opponent in TMU."

"A sign of an experienced group is being able to put tough losses behind us, we were able to reset and move on", said Laurier goaltender Christian Propp. "I thought we played, from front to back, a fantastic game of hockey and, with our group, I think that's when we're successful."

Laurier looks to build upon the strong performance on Thursday night at Sun Life Financial Arena where the Golden Hawks are slated for a Battle of Waterloo rematch.

Tickets are available for purchase online or catch the game live online at OUA.tv