February 29, 2016

Gryphons erupt for 11 goals vs Rams and advance to OUA West finals

GUELPH, ON - The defending Queen's Cup winners are still alive. And after an improbable offensive explosion in the deciding game of the OUA West Semi Final, they are more than well. The reigning league champion Guelph Gryphons pummelled the Ryerson Rams 11-3 at the Gryphon Centre Arena Sunday night to win the best-of-three series 2-1.

Guelph

Ryerson

Final	1	2	3	T
Guelph	3	8	0	11
Ryerson	1	1	1	3

Guelph

Ryerson

Final	1	2	3	T
Guelph	3	8	0	11
Ryerson	1	1	1	3

GUELPH, ON - The defending Queen's Cup winners are still alive. And after an improbable offensive explosion in the deciding game of the OUA West Semi Final, they are more than well. The reigning league champion Guelph Gryphons pummelled the Ryerson Rams 11-3 at the Gryphon Centre Arena Sunday night to win the best-of-three series 2-1.

Guelph will now square off with the Western Mustangs, who won game three of their semi-final series against the Toronto Varsity Blues 4-3 in overtime on Sunday. Guelph dropped both regular season games this year to the Mustangs, falling in both games by a close score of 3-2.

The blowout suggested it was a lopsided matchup. But Guelph head coach Shawn Camp didn't think that whatsoever. He had plenty of praise for the Rams.

"The score was not indicative of the way this series went," said Camp. "It was much more like the overtime game the other night. Ryerson is a first-class group and it starts with their coaching staff. Their veteran guys lead them the right way.

"Our hats off to them for a great series. The score tonight was one of those that no one expected."

Guelph scored 8 second-period goals on 14 shots, which allowed them to comfortably cruise to a berth in the OUA West Final against Western. To the Rams' credit, they played hard and clean despite the onslaught.

"The flood gates opened and the guys poured it on," said Camp. "We're sure that if we continue to work like this and play a team game like we did tonight, we'll certainly get our chances. Whether or not we'll finish will always be a different story. It's always done by committee. We don't have any superstars but we sure have a lot of guys that work hard together."

Dylan Gilbert (5 points), Kyle Neuber and Seth Swenson had two goals each, while Reilly O'Connor, Rob De Fulviis, Cody Thompson, Robert Lepine and Thomas Kohler also scored.

Gilbert was one of the early catalysts but he surely wasn't happy about his start. Less than a minute into the game, he took an interference penalty after crashing into goalie Troy Passingham. He would make amends with the opening goal of the game on a beautiful wrister from the slot at 4:11 of the period. And with 2:15 left in the first, the winger from Oakville went hard to the net and buried a puck that was sitting kindly in the crease after Passingham made an initial save on Scott Simmonds.

"Obviously, you don't want to get in the box early," said Gilbert, who was called for two minors in the first period. "In the back of my mind, I wanted to make it up to the guys for killing that off. I got an opportunity. It was a great pass by Robby Lepine and luckily it went in. That felt good to get the monkey off my back for this series and just to give the guys a big thank you for killing those penalties off."

Guelph produced a great first period to take a 3-1 lead into the intermission. But what the Gryphons did in the second would have needed to be seen to be believed. O'Connor's goal, which put Guelph up 4-1, was a thing of beauty. He took a pretty feed from De Fulviis on a 2-on-1 and went to his backhand to beat Passingham through the five-hole. Swenson's first came 90 second later, a goal that would chase the Ryerson netminder from the net for backup Taylor Dupuis.

Guelph showed no mercy on the relief goalie. De Fulviis and Swenson both beat him on goals less than two minutes apart. And the scoring continued (5 more goals) before the horn thankfully ended the period.

"We were talking about it on the bench," said Gilbert. "We've all been a part of games like that growing up but there weren't too many times in my memory that I can remember being on the right side of them.

"Part of the playoffs is respecting the other team and if you let up on them and show them that you're not going at them the way you should, I think they take that as a sign of disrespect. It wasn't like we were trying to pile on the goals, we're not that kind of team. Things just clicked.

"They're a great hockey team and it was a great series. They made us move our feet. It was just a sign of respect for us to keep playing the way that they made us play for the first two games."

Andrew D'Agostini was sharp despite Guelph's offensive outburst. The second-year Scarborough native stopped 21 of 23 shots faced and earned a rest after being replaced in the third period by senior Scott Stajcer.

There was no shortage of action in the opening couple of minutes, which were filled with huge hits, scrums and lots of scoring. Guelph took an early interference call but the Ryerson power play was cancelled out when De Fulviis took a high stick from a Rams defenceman. The Gryphons had a short man advantage and just as the Ryerson penalty ended, Lepine found Gilbert in the slot where he buried his first of two.

The Rams would get the goal back less than a minute later when Brandon Devlin scored on the power play with a blast from the point. But 1:14 later, Neuber beat Passingham with a low shot from a tough angle to give the Gryphons a 2-1 lead.

"We know that in the third game of a series like this, everybody's tired and everybody's sore," said Camp. "We really felt that if we could force the issue on their D that we would force some turnovers and maybe create some chances. That seemed to work for us tonight."

Mitchell Theoret and Daniel Clairmont had Ryerson's other goals.