The York University Lions women's hockey team lost a nail bitter to the Nipissing Lakers 3-2 on Friday night (Jan. 29) in North Bay.

The Lions offense was firing on a cylinders as they peppered Laker goaltender Sabrina Picard with 27 shots through three periods of play, but could only beat Picard twice in the loss.

The Lions power play unit came to play on Friday evening as they built an early 2-0 lead. The Lions first power play goal was scored by Jenna Gray (London, Ont.) and assisted by Chelsea Tucker (Alliston, Ont.) and Jessa McAuliffe (Odessa, Ont.) Shortly after the Lions added their second power play tally as Amy Locke (Toronto) scored her sixth of the season, with an assist once again going to Tucker.  

As the first period concluded the Lions headed to the dressing room with a comfortable 2-0 lead over the Lakers, but the narrative would drastically change in the second period. The Lions were penalized early which ignited the Laker offense. Brooklyn Irwin was the first Laker to beat Lions starting goaltender Megan Lee (Orillia, Ont.) at the nine-minute mark, and moments after the Lakers capitalized on another Lion penalty, as defenseman Stacey Henshaw tied the game at 2-2 on a well executed Laker power play.

In the third period the two sides avoided the penalty box and remained deadlocked at 2-2 until 58 seconds left to play when Laker forward Taylor Murphy broke through the Lions defense and potted the eventual game winning goal.

After Friday's loss, the Lions fall to 3-4-8-2 on the 2015/16 campaign as the Nipissing Lakers improve to 10-1-5-4 and are in second place in the OUA overall standings.

The Lions are back on the ice Saturday January 30^th when they take on the Laurentian Voyageurs in Sudbury.