The York University Lions men's hockey team defeated the Nipissing Lakers with a score of 5-4 at Canlan Ice Sports on Friday to get back into the win column after a pair of losses last weekend.
 
The first period started a bit slow for the Lions as the Lakers were in their end in the opening minutes. The Lakers cracked the scoreboard first with a goal just over two minutes in off a powerplay from Drake Lindsay, assisted from Danny Desrochers and Kylor Wall. Later on in the period, the Lions regained composure and started to apply pressure on the Lakers' defence, but it was Nipissing who found the back of the net again as Kyle Lewis scored his team's second goal at 11:27 of the first period for a 2-0 lead.
 
The Lions did not give up easily as they continued to play aggressive in the Lakers' end. Their hard work paid off when forward Brendan Browne, assisted by Justin Bean and Nik Coric, found and opening and split the defence to score the opening goal at 14:39 of the period.
 
Towards the final minutes of the first period, the Lakers had a great shot followed by a miraculous save from Lions goalie Mack Shields to close it with a score of 2-1 for the Lakers.
 
In the second period, the Lions aimed to start the same way they ended the first, and they did not disappoint. The Lions played strong defence at the start and then had a fantastic attempt that was saved by Lakers goalie Brent Moran. The Lions were not unlucky for long, however, as defenceman Jack Goranson scored on a powerplay at 6:45 assisted by Jeremy Lucchini and Tyler Higgins.
 
With just over one minute remaining, forward Peter De Coppi scored with an assist to Filice. When the period was coming to a close, and the Lions thought they would take the lead to close the period, the Lakers scored a tying goal just 15 seconds before the buzzer from Deverick Ottereyes assisted by Lucas Brown and Alseny Bangoura closing it with a tying score of 3-3.
 
The Lions were determined to finish this game strong and came out tough in the third period, and they succeeded by scoring again in the first three minutes when Goranson netted his second of the game, assisted by De Coppi and Bean to make it 4-3.
 
The Lions continued to play strong defence and were able to stop all of the Lakers' advances through the first part of the period, but at 10:11 the Lakers scored their fourth goal from Brett Jeffries assisted by Wall, resulting in a 4-4 tie.
 
The game was deadlocked until the Lions scored the game-winning goal at 13:53 of the period from team captain Scott Feser with the assist from Higgins, his second in the game resulting in an ending score of 5-4 for the Lions.
 
The Lions improved to 3-4-1 with the win and will play their next game on Saturday at home against the Windsor Lancers at 7:15pm.