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Rams lose close game to Ravens

By Ben Shelley

The Ryerson men’s hockey team fell 4-3 in a close game against the Carleton Ravens at the Mattamy Athletic Centre on Wednesday.

Both teams played hard, with the shot total landing in Ryerson’s favour,  30-28. Despite the loss, Rams’ head coach Graham Wise was happy with his team’s play.

“I thought our effort was there for sure, we just got ourselves behind the eight-ball, then had to battle back,” said Wise. “We held them to 28 shots, so [holding] a team like that to less than ten shots per period [is] pretty good.”

Brett Welychka opened the scoring for Carleton half way through the first period, beating Ryerson goaltender Troy Passingham on the power play. The Ravens then increased their lead to two with 52 seconds left in the period, when Ryan Van Stralen found himself all alone in front of the net, and tapped in a pass from Welychka.

The Rams opened the second period by getting on the board early with a power play goal of their own. Lucas Froese found Jason Kelly at the side of the net, who directed the puck past Carleton’s goalie, Francis Dupuis, to cut the lead to 2-1. Carleton then regained their two-goal lead with just over six minutes to go in the period, when Van Stralen scored his second of the game, deflecting a point shot past Passingham.

In the third, Ryerson once again closed the gap by scoring early in the period, with a goal from Chris Marchese. The Rams then tied the game midway through the period, when captain Michael Fine deflected in a shot by Keevin Cutting, to beat Dupuis.

However, Carleton then took the lead once more, when a shot hit a Ryerson defenceman in front of the Ryerson goal, and rebounded right on to the stick of Mitch Zion, who tapped the puck into the open net.

Fine said he was happy with the team’s effort for most of the game.

“We came out a bit slow, obviously we want to come out better than that, but [in the] second and third I thought we were right there with them, [and] had a good chance to win,” said Fine.

The Rams play their next game on Saturday, Nov. 21, when they host RMC at the MAC.

“[We] have to start preparing right now, [we] can’t change anything that happened tonight, but we’ve got to come with the same energy tomorrow,” said Wise. “It’s not who we’re playing tomorrow, it’s how we’re playing.”

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