Lakers finish regular season strong with win over Gaels

KINGSTON, ON - Timely goal scoring and solid goaltending is usually a pretty good formula for success and that's exactly what the Nipissing Lakers found out Saturday night. The first year OUA squad finished off a perfect weekend with their second win in as many nights to close out the OUA regular season as they defeated the Queen's Gaels 5-4 Saturday night at the Kingston Memorial Centre.

The Lakers broke open a 2-2 second period tie with 3 straight in the first half of the final period to take a 5-2 lead. The Queen's scored twice late to make it interesting.

Lakers Billy Stone continued to impress as he turned away 40 shots for his second straight win.

"In the third we scored on our chances and Billy played great," admitted head coach Mike McParland who will have a tough time keeping Stone on the bench when the playoffs begin in Montreal (vs. McGill) on Wednesday.

Sam Hopewell scored a pair for the Lakers with singles going to Ryan Maunu, Marcus Pryde and Matt Lahey.

Payton Liske scored twice for the Gaels. Jonathon Lawrence and Joey Durochie had the other goals for Queen's.

Despite the impressive finish to the season, the Lakers still were unable to move up in the standings as they finish 7th in the OUA East with a record of 12-15-1.

However the Lakers did finish with a decent road record grabbing 14 points in their 28 game schedule - a road point total that's impressive for an established team let alone one that just started up this fall.