WATERLOO, Ont. – Thursday night at the University of Waterloo, the Gryphons men's hockey team picked up a 5-2 road win over the Waterloo Warriors. With the game tied 2-2 late in the 2nd period, the Gryphons would take the lead thanks to a power play goal from fourth year forward Trevor Morbeck to give the Gryphons a 3-2 lead heading to the 3rd. Morbeck would score his second power play goal of the night 4:37 into the final period to give the Gryphons some breathing room as they would go on to hand the Warriors (5-11-3) their seventh straight loss. For the Gryphons, who entered the week ranked No. 10 in the country, it marked the team's 12th win in their last 13 regular season games. Guelph remains atop the OUA West division standings with a record of 14-4-1 on the season.
 
"Our special teams were outstanding tonight," said Gryphons head coach Shawn Camp. "Throughout the course of the year, special teams can win you games or lose you games and tonight they helped us get an important two points. Obviously the power play goals were huge, but what we did on the penalty kill was just as important."
 
The Gryphons went 2-for-7 on the man advantage and were a perfect 6-for-6 on the penalty kill, including successfully killing off a 5-on-3 opportunity during the 1st period. Andres Kopstals, Tryg Strand, Nicholas Boyer and Scott Simmonds were amongst the cast of Gryphons who helped deny the Warriors power play unit throughout the night.
 
Oddly enough, some of Waterloo's best scoring chances on special teams were actually of the short-handed variety instead of with the man advantage. After Guelph jumped out to a 2-0 lead with 1st period goals just :28 seconds apart from Tryg Strand and Seth Swenson, the Warriors would battle back to tie the game at 2-2.

From there, Waterloo would threaten to take the lead, but Gryphons rookie goalie Andrew Masters would come up with a pair of short-handed breakaway saves to keep the game tied at 2-2. Masters made 33 saves on the night for his third win in the past seven days.
 
Late in the 2nd period, it appeared as though Waterloo was on their way to successfully killing off a four minute major until Trevor Morbeck intervened. After the Warriors had denied the Gryphons for the first 3 and a half minutes of a four minute man advantage, the Gryphons would finally find the breakthrough with Morbeck scoring on the rush to put Guelph ahead 3-2.
 
Morbeck would score his second of the night and sixth of the season in the early stages of the 3rd period by deflecting a Mathieu Henderson point shot home to push the Gryphon lead to 4-2. Captain Scott Simmonds would cap the scoring midway through the 3rd with his 8th goal of the year to seal the Gryphs' 5-2 victory.
 
The Gryphons (14-4-1) will now return home to host the Lakehead Thunderwolves (8-8-1) on Saturday night at the Gryphon Centre. The Gryphons and Thunderwolves split a pair of exhibition games over the Christmas break in Thunder Bay, but also met back on November 10 in Guelph where the Gryphons won 3-1. Saturday night's game is scheduled for 7:30pm and can be seen live online at oua.tv.