February 20, 2016

Dominant second period leads Mustangs to series sweep over Laurier

WATERLOO, Ont. – Noah Schwartz, Luke Karaim, and Spenser Cobbold scored within a four-minute stretch in the second period on Friday night to help the Mustangs skate to a 4-1 victory and a series sweep over the Laurier Golden Hawks at RIM Park.

Laurier

Western

Final	1	2	3	T
Laurier	1	0	0	1
Western	1	3	0	4

Laurier

Western

Final	1	2	3	T
Laurier	1	0	0	1
Western	1	3	0	4

WATERLOO, Ont. – Noah Schwartz, Luke Karaim, and Spenser Cobbold scored within a four-minute stretch in the second period on Friday night to help the Mustangs skate to a 4-1 victory and a series sweep over the Laurier Golden Hawks at RIM Park.

With their first best-of-three series out of the way, the Mustangs now play the waiting game to see who they'll face in the second round. The Golden Hawks, on the other hand, are faced with an early exit after failing to make the playoffs in each of the last two years.

After giving up the opening goal to Christian Mroczkowski, Western dominated for the remained of the first, finishing with 15 shots to Laurier's seven and getting a goal from Shaun Furlong. Furlong's goal, assisted by Andrew Goldberg and Cody Brown, came midway through the frame and spoiled what turned out to be Laurier's only lead of the series.

Peter Delmas started for Western after Greg Dodds got the call Wednesday night and made the best of it, turning away 15 shots through the first two periods before doubling his workload with 16 saves in a busy third period. If the Mustangs are going to continue rotating their goaltenders throughout the playoffs, it looks like their backstops are up to the task.

Special teams played a big role in Western's second-period breakout, as the Mustangs had to kill off three penalties before getting a power play marker of their own from Schwartz. Less than 30 seconds later Karaim would double Western's lead, beating Furlong to make it 3-1. Cobbold added a rebound goal while sliding on the ice to stretch the lead to 4-1.

Western killed off a total of seven penalties on Friday night without allowing a goal against. The power play finished with one goal on four opportunities and is now firing at 35.7% in the playoffs so far while the penalty kill has a 93% success rate through 14 opportunities.

Mroczkowski ended up as Laurier's leading scorer in the series, potting two goals through two games to give him a final total of 10 goals and 12 assists on the season. Goldberg locked down player of the series for Western with another multi-point effort on Friday, adding two assists to finish with five points (2g, 3a) through two games.

NOTES: Schwartz's game-winner was his fourth in limited action this season... Brown and Schwartz both finished with four points to share the second place on the playoff scoring leaderboard for Western, while Cobbold, Furlong, and Stephen Sanza each had three points… Thirteen of the 21 forwards Western dressed during the first round had points… Delmas' 31-save win came in the first playoff start of his OUA career.