TORONTO – Scoring game-winning goals is becoming old hat for Kelin Ainsworth.
The fifth-year veteran’s shootout shot bounced off Toronto goalie Andrew Hunt on Friday night and trickled into the net to earn the Thunderwolves their second win of the young OUA men’s hockey season, a 6-5 triumph over the host Varsity Blues.
The Wolves climbed back to .500 with the victory at 2-2-0.
Early on it looked like Lakehead would run away and hide. E.J. Faust, Cody Alcock and Brennen Dubchak staked the Thunderwolves to a 3-0 lead by the five-minute mark of the second. They took a 4-1 lead into the final period, but the Varsity Blues blasted four pucks past Lakehead goalie Devin Green and forced overtime.
Neither team scored in the first five-minute period, nor in the three-on-three frame that followed.
Brennen Dubchak and Matthew Campagna traded goals to start the shootout, but after Carson Dubchak and Aidan Wallace missed, Ainsworth netted the winner, Dean Klomp’s attempted equalizer clanging off the Thunderwolves post.
Alcock and Dubchak scored a pair of goals apiece for LU, Dubchak adding a helper for a three-point night.
Wallace, with two, Max Lindsay, Connor Cleverley and Connor Bebb, who tied the game with 1:21 to go in regulation, scored for Toronto.
The two teams will meet again on Saturday at Varsity Arena.
