TORONTO, Ont. - Saturday Night (Feb. 3) at the Mattamy Athletics Centre in Toronto, the Guelph Gryphons men's hockey team suffered a hard-fought 5-2 loss to the TMU Bold. With the loss the Gryphons move to 11-15-1 on the season and set up a must-win regular season finale against the Western Mustangs this Thursday (Feb. 8) in the annual 'Aggie Night' game. The Gryphons currently sit in 8th-place in the OUA West division and are two points back of the 7th-seeded Nipissing Lakers. In addition to needing an 'Aggie Night' win the Gryphons need to Lakers to fall to the Lakehead Thunderwolves in their final game Friday night.

Saturday night's game saw veteran defenceman Jaxon Camp open the scoring with his 3rd of the season after the Ottawa native made a nice cut in towards the net and beat TMU goaltender Ryan Dugas glove-side. For Camp, the first period goal marked his 11th point of the season, tying his career best point total as a Gryphon. The Gryphon lead would be short lived, with the Bold answering just five minutes later with a goal from Ian Martin to tie things up. With less than two minutes to go in the opening frame, Anthony Tabak found a trailing Nathan Allensen who rifled a wrist shot past the blocker of Dugan to retake the lead. It was Allensen's 4th goal and 12th point of the campaign with the second-year defenceman now just a single point shy of his total from a season ago. 

The second period would see both teams tighten up on defence, but the home team would break through with just over three minutes until the second intermission to send the game to a tie once again. In the third, both teams would receive a pair of chances on the powerplay but unfortunately for the Gryphons, the Bold were the only ones able to capitalize, taking their first lead of the night 8 minutes into the period. Another TMU score with 3:24 to play would all but solidify the Bold victory, with the team adding an empty to bring the final score to 5-2.

The Gryphons (11-15-1) will no prepare for the biggest game of their season as they look to earn a berth into the OUA West play-in game between the 6th and 7th-seeded teams in the conference's west division with a win over the Mustangs. Thursday's 'Aggie Night' game is set to get underway at 7:30pm, with the game also serving as the Gryphons men's hockey senior night celebration. Tickets for the Gryphons regular season finale are available online at gryphons.ca/tickets.