Box Score The Waterloo Warriors just couldn't find the strength in numbers that they needed on Tuesday against their cross-town rivals.\

Brendan Woods scored a goal in regulation and added the only marker in the shootout to lead the undermanned Laurier Golden Hawks to a 3-2 shootout win over the Waterloo Warriors in the School Day game at the Waterloo Rec Complex Tuesday afternoon.

Anthony Tapper (Marmora/) and Tyler Norrie (Simcoe/) counted for the Warriors in the losing cause, and Luke Hietkamp added the other Laurier tally. Both goaltenders were tested often and gave their clubs a chance to win, as Mike Morrison (Hamilton/) turned aside 37 shots in the Waterloo cage, while Vinny Merante made 41 stops for Laurier in the win.

The Hawks, ravaged with injuries, were able to dress only 12 skaters for the rare 11am start. The Warriors fielded a full club, but what their infirmary lacked in quantity was made up in quality – leading goal scorer Chris Chappell (Pickering/) and captain Joe Underwood (Canton/) were both shelved with upper body injuries.

For a game that started before noon in front of a packed crowd of school students from throughout Waterloo, the pace was surprisingly fast early on. The first period featured its share of golden opportunities – including Waterloo's Justin Larson (Buckhorn/) ripping it wide of a gaping net – but the first frame ended in a scoreless draw.

Woods opened the scoring in the second period when he was sprung on a break and beat Morrison just past the five-minute mark. The Warriors came on strong at the end of the frame, however, and with less than three mimutes left, Tapper potted his third of the season to even the score at 1-1 after forty minutes.

Hietkamp poked a loose puck through the wickets of Morrison and just across the line to restore the Laurier lead early in the third, but Norrie responded less than two minutes later with his first career CIS goal to reinstate the deadlock.

For much of the third, the Warriors' fresher legs were apparent – at one point, Waterloo had ten straight shots on goal, and were leading 20-7 in third-period shots. But the closest they came to a regulation win was a Kain Allicock (Markham/) one-timer ripped off the cross bar, meaning overtime would be necessary.

The five-minute extra session solved nothing, and Woods squeezed a shot through Morrison's five hole in round two for the only goal of the shootout. It's a fate the Warriors are all too familiar with in games that go beyond 65 minutes – dating back to last year, it's Waterloo's seventh consecutive shootout loss.

Waterloo will need to shake off the loss and get prepared for a huge game against the team immediately behind them in the standings – the Guelph Gryphons – who the Warriors will visit Thursday night. Puck drop is slated for 7:30pm.

Notes: Waterloo went 0-for-1 on the power play, while Laurier went 0-for-2…Larson saw his 8-game point streak snapped…the raucous crowd of local students contributed heavily to the announced attendance of 2,780.