Weekend Recap: Gee-Gees close out first half with third straight road win, improve to 13-1-2

The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees men's hockey team closed out the first half of the season with a pair of road wins over the UOIT Ridgebacks and Queen's Gaels, and rising to the top of the OUA standings.

Following a come from behind win over UQTR the weekend prior, Ottawa turned in a similar showing against UOIT. On three separate occasions, the Gee-Gees trailed by a single goal over the course of the contest.

"Once we got going, we played our style, we had the bulk of the chances," said head coach Patrick Grandmaître following the game.

While they never led, the Gee-Gees found ways to maintain possession for extended bursts, and convert that into scoring chances.

Kevin Domingue used his foot speed and open ice too manoeuvre around the ice with ease, and eventually bury the game winner.

Brendan Jacome established a new career high in the game, scoring his 10th goal of the season in game 15. Last season, the forward from Caledon, Ont. notched nine goals over the course of 27 games.

Jacome credited his early season success to chemistry with line-mates Domingue and Cody Drover.

"Our lines working hard and working well together," he said. "When you're creating chances it's bound to find the back of the net. I'm feeling good with the puck, feeling confident, and things keep going our way."

The following night in Kingston, Grandmaître felt his squad had another slow start, before picking up momentum with a Drover power play goal.

"I like how we reacted too adjustments between periods," he added. "They pushed back quite a bit, but we reacted well. Good goaltending, goals from three different lines and good push back from the fourth."

Midway through the second period and up by two goals, Marc Beckstead nearly added to the lead — hitting iron on an open cage. Instead, a Gael collected the rebound, transitioned up the ice and buried the puck to cut the Gee-Gees' deficit in half.

While some teams may be deterred by the poor puck luck, the Gee-Gees continued to pour on pressure and were eventually rewarded when Yvan Mongo deflected a puck to restore the two-goal lead.

Drover added an empty netter, his second goal of the night, to round out the scoring in the 4-1 win.

With the 13-1-2 record, the Gee-Gees matched a streak from the 2016/17 season, when the team posted an identical record between November 5, 2016 and January 27, 2017.

Following a month-long break, Ottawa will return to the ice with a trip to Montreal to take on McGill on January 4, 2019. The first game back on home ice will be January 11th against the Carleton Ravens with puck drop slated for 7:30 p.m.