The York University Lions men's hockey team failed to close out the OUA West Quarterfinals against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues on Saturday afternoon (Feb.20), falling 3-2 at Varsity Arena.

The Blues have extended the series to a third game which will be played at Canlan on Sunday (Feb.21) at 2pm. The first 20 minutes of Saturdays game was similar to game one, as both sides could not gather offensive momentum in the early stages. The Varsity Blues were the first to crack the deadlock, with forward Mathew Campagna beating Lions starting goaltender Chris Perugini (King City, Ont.), to give the Blues the lead going into the first intermission.  

As the game progressed the play between the cross town rivals began to heat up, and also reminiscent of game one, the scoring flood gates gradually opened. After a heavy dose of Lion shots on Blues goalie Andrew Hunt, the Lions eventually solved the crafty net minder, as the equalizer was scored by Mitch Van Teeling (Brandon, Man.). Van Teeling was set up by Tyler McGee (Timmins, Ont.) & Jason Bird (Etobicoke, Ont.).

Following the Van Teeling goal, the ice opened up with both teams getting quality chances at each end of the ice. The Lions took the lead just over a minute after their first goal, when Kyle Campbell (Halifax), found Mark Cross (Strasbourg, Sask) with a beautiful pass on a two on one break.

The OUA West champs were a period and a half from a clean sweep of the first round until desperation kicked in for the Blues and they countered the Lions offensive emergence. The emotional roller-coaster of the second period continued throughout the duration, as the Blues started to apply more pressure inside the Lions blue line. Casey Knight of the Blues was able to pot the games tying goal at the 16:27 mark of the second with a wrist shot from the top of the circle which beat Perugini. The Blues were not quite finished, with seconds remaining on the clock, the Blues Patrick Marsh received a pass from Corey Jackson, and beat Perugini with two seconds left on the clock to capture the games lead once more. 

The third period had no scoring and game two ended in a 3-2 win for the Varsity Blues. The rubber game of the OUA West quarter final will be held tomorrow (Feb.21) at Canlan Ice Sports on the York University Campus. Puck drop for game three is at 2pm.