Having scored his first career U SPORTS goal in the third period of Friday night's showdown with the York Lions, Waterloo Warriors rookie defenseman
Connor Lovie (London/Cochrane Crunch, NOJHL) decided to knock another milestone off his list: first career overtime winner.
Lovie potted the game-winner at the 1:27 mark of the extra session, as the Warriors edged the Lions 6-5 in a wild back-and-forth affair at the Columbia Icefield Arena.
Connor Lovie
Waterloo snapped a four-game losing skid with the hard-fought victory, in which the hosts held three different leads in regulation time.
Cam Nicoll (Loretto/Newmarket Hurricanes, OJHL) led the offensive explosion with four assists for the Warriors, while
Markson Bechtold (Strathmore/Saskatoon Blades, WHL) scored twice. Waterloo also got multi-point performances from
Nick Halagian (St. Catharines/Powell River Kings, BCHL) and
Jack Scanlan (Penetanguishene/Stratford Warriors, GOJHL), while
Connor Cole (Kitchener/Kitchener Dutchmen, GOJHL) notched his fifth goal of the season.
Nik Coric scored twice and added an assist for the Lions, who fought back from a two-goal deficit in the third period to send the game to overtime. Morgan Messenger had a pair of assists for the visitors, who also got goals from Sal Filice, Bradley Forrest, and Scott Feser.
The first period showed few signs of the see-saw battle to come, as the Warriors controlled the bulk of the play through the opening stanza. They also got the only goal of the first 20 minutes, when Bechtold squeezed a shot past York keeper Mack Shields on the power play, to give Waterloo the early 1-0 advantage.
But the game took a turn for the strange less than two minutes into the second period, when Filice wired a shot off the crossbar behind Warriors netminder
Trevor Martin (Ardrossan/Calgary Hitmen, WHL). Play continued for over two minutes until Bechtold was whistled for a boarding penalty, and the officials conferred about the Filice blast. The men in stripes eventually ruled that the puck had gone in under the crossbar, and the Lions had a controversial equalizer.
Just over two minutes later, Coric scored his first on the night on a rebound in front, giving the Lions a 2-1 lead. But the Warriors would push back with a pair of markers in a span of 1:56 – first, Scanlan converted a lovely Nicoll feed to tie the game, before Cole whacked home a rebound off a rush from Halagian to make it 3-2 Warriors. But before the end of the second, the Lions would equalize once again, when a Forrest point shot deflected in on the man-advantage, making it 3-3 after 40 minutes.
Bechtold gave the Warriors the lead back when he slammed in a
Mike Moffat (Waterloo/Kingston Frontenacs, OHL) rebound for his second of the night, and Lovie extended the lead to 5-3 with a point-shot blast off an offensive zone faceoff midway through the final frame. But the Lions surged late with Coric's second of the night, before Feser made it 5-5 on a wicked power play wrister with under five minutes to play, sending the game to overtime.
Waterloo was 0-4 in their previous extra sessions this season, but a big save by Martin in the opening seconds kept the Warriors alive. Shortly thereafter, Lovie converted a gorgeous saucer pass from Scanlan on a 2-on-1 to give Waterloo the victory.
The Warriors will now look to end the 2018 portion of their schedule on a winning note when they visit the Toronto Varsity Blues on Saturday, December 1, ahead of the holiday and exam break. Puck drop from Varsity Arena is slated for 7pm.
