The No. 8 nationally-ranked York University Lions men's hockey team erased a three-goal deficit but ultimately lost in a shootout by a score of 4-3 to the Ottawa Gee-Gees on Saturday night at the uOttawa Minto Sports Complex.
 
The Gee-Gees built a big three-goal lead only five minutes into the second period. Medric Mercier opened the scoring at 7:30 of the first period with a power play goal, and Brendan Jacome and Eric Locke added tallies at 2:56 and 4:25 of the second, respectively to give the home fans something to cheer about.
 
The Lions started chipping away at the deficit later that period and were rewarded with their first goal of the game at 8:18 courtesy of rookie Justin Bean, who was the hero on Friday night with the tying goal only 45 seconds before the final whistle.
 
Just over a minute later the Lions narrowed the gap again as Kyle Campbell scored at 9:29 to make it 3-2. He was assisted by Sal Filice on the play.
 
The remainder of the second period was uneventful and the Lions continued to trail heading into the third, but at 6:08 they finally leveled the score thanks to Andrew Doyle, with assists to Jack Goranson and Campbell.
 
With neither team finding the winning goal for the rest of regulation or overtime, the Lions went into their second straight shootout. However, this time they were not able to score and Ottawa's Connor Sills added the only goal in the first round to give the Gee-Gees the second point in the standings.
 
The Lions were outshot significantly in the game but goaltender Alex Fotinos was tremendous in net, stopping 55 of the 58 shots he faced to get his time a point. Ottawa netminder Anthony Brodeur made 34 saves for the win.
 
The Lions slipped to 10-4-1 with the loss and are now tied with the red hot Guelph Gryphons, winners of eight straight, at the top of the OUA West standings. They have a challenging finish to the first half of their schedule with games against the third-place Laurier Golden Hawks and fourth-place Ryerson Rams next weekend. The Lions will welcome the Hawks to Canlan Ice Sports on Friday night at 7pm and will travel downtown to the Mattamy Athletic Centre on Saturday to face the Rams.