St. Catharines, Ont. - Laurier's Sunday matinee against the #5 Brock Badgers was a goaltender showdown in which Matthew Barnes scored the tiebreaking goal for the Badgers, lifting them to a 2-1 victory over the Golden Hawks.
Brock outshot Laurier 16-9 in the first period, but the game sheet remained clean over the first 20 minutes of play. The last time Laurier played a period of hockey that contained no goals or penalties was in the first game of the playoffs last year against the… Brock Badgers in an opening period where the Badgers outshot the purple and gold 15-9.
The second period was the polar opposite of the first. Two goals were scored and 11 infractions were called.
The Golden Hawks opened the scoring on a powerplay 3:40 into the second frame. Patrick Brown flew through the neutral zone with the puck and passed it to Callum Chisholm on the boards. He took the Badgers blueline and returned the puck to the speedy Brown, who sent it upstairs for his third of the season.
Jonah Boria scored the equalizer for the Badgers with 8:50 remaining in the second period. Both goalies would hold the fort and bring their teams into the third period tied 1-1.
After back-and-forth odd-man rushes, Brock's Matthew Barnes stopped a Laurier two-on-one, picked up the puck behind his net and went 200 feet to score the game-winning goal.
Laurier was a perfect 3 for 3 on the penalty kill and 1 for 6 on the powerplay. Laurier currently sits tied fifth in the OUA in penalty kill percentage at 86% and seventh in powerplay percentage at 22.2%.
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PLUS/MINUS
Plus + Goaltender Duel
The goaltending was sensational on Sunday afternoon. Laurier's netminder and honorary assistant captain Christian Propp put up 38 saves in this game, good enough for a 0.950% save percentage. He made a couple of jaw-dropping saves to keep the puck out of his net.
In Brock's crease, rookie netminder Connor Ungar stopped 32 of 33 Laurier shots. He also made several stellar saves to keep Laurier from scoring.
UP NEXT
Next weekend the Golden Hawks host a pair of squads from Quebec - McGill and UQTR. They first take on McGill on Friday night. Laurier has not played McGill since 2019 and has won their last three matchups against the Redbirds.
Puck drop against McGill is at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale now. If you can't be at the game, follow the action on X (formerly Twitter) at @WLUAthletics or live on OUA.tv.
