Gryphons bounced out of quarter-finals by Saint Mary’s
HALIFAX – Déjà vu as it’s one and done for the Guelph Gryphons at the U Sports University Cup men’s hockey championship tournament Thursday night at Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre.
For the second year in a row, the Gryphs were ousted by a team with the Huskies nickname on the opening day of the championship tournament.
Thursday, the third-seed Gryphons, the OUA Queen’s Cup champions, were downed 5-1 by the sixth-seed Saint Mary’s Huskies, the Atlantic Conference bronze medalists.
The Gryphs had posted a 24-8-5 record through the OUA’s regular season and playoffs while Saint Mary’s was 22-5-1.
Saint Mary’s scored at least one goal in each period as the Huskies led 1-0 at the end of the first period and 3-1 after the second.
Gio Finoro scored the lone goal for the Gryphs as he hit with 2:53 to go in the second period. That goal came after Saint Mary’s had scored three times. Assists on the play went to Connor Bramwell and Marc Stevens.
Sam King, Sam Dunn, Bronson Beaton, Jonathan Hampton and Mitchell Balmas each had a goal for the Huskies. Dylan Di Perna assisted on three of the goals while single assists were awarded to Jacob Friend, Beaton, Anthony Repaci, Alexander Peters and Stephen Johnson.
The Huskies outshot the Gryphs 36-24 and scored on their lone power play while Guelph was scoreless on three power plays.
Andrew Masters had 24 saves in net for the Gryphs and was replaced by Brendan Cregan after the fourth goal for Saint Mary’s. Cregan went the rest of the way and he yielded a goal on eight shots.
Eric Brassard had 23 saves to get the win in the Saint Mary’s net.
The Gryphs also suffered a first-day, quarter-final loss last year at the national championship tournament when they were downed 6-1 by the Saskatchewan Huskies who eventually finished fourth.
Saint Mary’s advances to face the seventh-seed Western Mustangs, OUA bronze medalists, in Saturday’s semifinals. Western edged second-seed Saskatchewan 3-2 in Thursday’s tournament opener.
Huskies 5 Gryphons 1
Saint Mary’s 1-2-2–5
Guelph 0-1-0–1
Click here for boxscore
- Guelph Sports Journal