After a tight defensive battle Friday night, the offense opened up in a 5-2 win Saturday afternoon, earning the Lions a sweep of the Panthers at the Patterson Ice Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Jake Townsend gave Lindenwood a first period lead when he wired the puck home off a feed from
Zach Mitchell at 18:46. Mitchell earned his second helper when he and
Austin Wilk set up
Ryan Finnegan at 7:29 in the second to extend the Lions advantage to 2-0. Davenport cut that margin in half with just under nine minutes remaining, but Mitchell found the back of the net off of his own blade on a play set up by
Mike Lozano and
Zach Martin, giving Lindenwood a 3-1 lead after two. The Lions took advantage of a power play when Brendon Murphy and Wilk created an opening for
Alex Kalau to build the advantage to 4-1 just 75 seconds into the third. The Panthers made it 4-2 with 11:34 left in regulation, and pulled their goalie late in a comeback effort, but Wilk stole the puck and sent it to
Cade Owad for an empty-netter at the 18:22 mark.
Lindenwood outshot Davenport 26-21 and
Michael Errico stopped 19 of the 21 pucks he faced to earn his second collegiate victory for the Lions, who went one-for-three on the power play while holding the Panthers scoreless on one man-advantage opportunity.Â
With the win, Lindenwood improved to 25-1-0 overall. The Lions are scheduled to wrap up the regular season with a road series against Arkansas March 1-2. The opening faceoff is set for 7 p.m. Friday night at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon at the Jones Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas.Â
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