For the second straight game, the Waterloo Warriors men's hockey team faced season-defining adversity in the third period. And for the second straight game, it was their captain that helped lift them to the biggest win of their season to date.
Mike Moffat (Waterloo/) scored twice in regulation – including the game-tying goal in the third period – and then added the shootout winner, as the Warriors secured a 5-4 victory over the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks on Saturday night at the Waterloo Rec Complex.
Waterloo pushed back in the third period after surrendering an early 3-0 lead, leading to their second straight victory. Earlier in the week, the Warriors ended a seven-game losing streak against the Windsor Lancers, in which Moffat's first goal of the season held up as the eventual game-winner. The Warriors improved to 7-11-3, and now sit just one point back of Windsor for the eighth and final playoff spot in the OUA West division.
Keigan Goetz (New Hamburg/) notched a goal and an assist against the Hawks, while Daniel Perigo (Truro/) added a pair of helpers. Eric Cimino (London/) also scored for Waterloo, while Trevor Martin (Ardrossan/) turned aside 27 shots for the victory.
Laurier got goals from Brandon Robinson, Erik Pushka, Christian Mroczkowski, and Jacob Hetherington to storm back from the three-goal first period deficit. Colin Furlong took the loss, stopping 20 of 21 shots in relief of Chris Festarini. The Hawks saw their record fall to 13-6-3 on the season, as they jockey for positioning at the top of the OUA West.
The Warriors seemed to carry the momentum of their emotional win over the Lancers into the first period of Saturday's game, as they swarmed the Hawks right from the opening faceoff. Moffat opened the scoring just over five minutes into the game, and Cimino doubled the Waterloo lead just over two minutes later when he walked into a loose puck from the line and blasted a rocket slapper past Festarini.
Later in the frame, Goetz made it 3-0 when he whacked home a rebound on the power play. The marker extended the rookie's goal-scoring streak to three games, and gave him a team-leading 12 goals on the season. That tally also chased Festarini from the Laurier crease, in favour of Furlong.
Robinson got one back for Laurier just before the end of the first, as he took the give-and-go feed from Pushka and beat Martin to the blocker side to make it 3-1 after 20 minutes. The Hawks seemed rejuvenated by that goal, and carried the play for the bulk of the second period, until Pushka's marker late in the frame cut the Waterloo lead to 3-2 heading into the third.
In the final stanza, Laurier scored twice within the first three minutes to take over the lead – first, Mroczkowski netted a goal to tie the score at 3-3, before Heatherington followed up the play as the trailer, and rifled home a blast to give Laurier a 4-3 advantage. But with exactly 5 minutes left, the Warriors' captain struck: After a Cam Nicoll (Loretto/) one-timer was kicked away by Furlong, Moffat slid the rebound home to send the game to overtime tied 4-4.
Laurier had a couple chances to end it in the extra session, but Martin made a huge glove stop on a 2-on-1 early in overtime, while Robinson rang a shot off the post later in the five-minute period. The nailbiting affair was sent to a shootout, where each team's first shooter was turned aside. Then, after Anthony Sorrentino and Nicoll each scored in the second round (the latter with a gorgeous backhand deek to the roof), Martin stymied Anthony Conti to put the game on Moffat's stick once again. The captain picked his way in and made no mistake, as he picked the top corner over Furlong's left shoulder to give Waterloo the 5-4 decision, and set off a huge celebration for the black and gold.
The Warriors will now begin preparing for a pair of massive contests with playoff implications, as they head to Windsor for two games against the eighth-place Lancers on January 26-27.
