Nipissing Edges Ottawa in Snowy Affair to Set Up Third Place Showdown with Queen's Sunday

Because they held on for a tight 11-10 win in the snow in Ottawa on Saturday, the Nipissing Lakers simplified their task for Sunday.

Beat the Gaels in the final game of the CUFLA season at Queen's and the Lakers will earn third place and play host to the Gaels in the CUFLA playoffs next weekend. Lose Sunday and they will have to travel back to Kingston in a week for that first-round playoff game. 

The game was tight throughout. Nipissing opened with a pair of goals but Ottawa responded with four straight. After evening the score at 5-5 with the last goal of the first half, the Lakers got goals from Tanner Poole, Sam Rooney and leading scorer Scott Dominey to pull ahead. 

Spencer Corkery, Jeff Brett and Fred Hartley replied in kind, though, and the game was tied once again, this time 8-8.

Dominey set up Will Craig for a marker just 20 seconds from the end of the period to nudge the Lakers ahead. Neither team could score in the first half of the fourth quarter, but then Tyler Goodchild connected twice for Nipissing three minutes apart to give the Lakers an 11-8 lead with 6:06 to play. 

As the game ticked down to the final couple of minutes, it looked like the Lakers had things locked up but the Gee-Gees--even though they knew they were already locked in to finishing sixth and playing the top seed in the playoffs--weren't ready to throw in the towel. They showed the kind of resilience they have demonstrated all year as Keith Lee and Brett scored 32 seconds apart to pull Ottawa back within one. 

Nipissing managed to fend them off for the final minute and a half, though, to escape with the snowy win and set up the showdown with Queen's at 2 pm Sunday. 

Box score
Photo album by Ellen Bond