LONDON, Ont. – The line of Cody Brown, Spenser Cobbold, and Shaun Furlong teamed up for a big performance on Saturday afternoon, contributing four goals to a 5-1 victory over the Windsor Lancers at Thompson Arena.
 
Western's victory helped them avenge the four-spot that Windsor put up on them in December, when the Mustangs were mired in their worst slump of the season. Saturday's rematch was a rough one, with 38 penalty minutes handed out to Windsor and 14 to Western.
 
"We always have a nice rivalry with Windsor," said Brown. "With playoffs around the corner we know they're going to be coming and we did the same thing tonight so obviously it was going to be a chippy game."
 
Brown opened the scoring just under four minutes in on a dump-in and two minutes into the second Sean Callaghan would add a similar-looking goal. Western rounded out the middle frame with goals from Brown and Cobbold to take a 4-0 lead into the third.
 
The early tough luck ended up being a tough pill to swallow for the Lancers, who aren't used to being out of a game with the Mustangs.
 
"Windsor is a formidable opponent—we've actually had a lot of trouble with them the last couple years if you look back at the history of our games," said Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer. "We got one pretty early, which I think helped with the energy, and then we had some good bounces, some seeing-eye goals that absolutely helped us a lot."
 
Greg Dodds was excellent in the victory, stopping 33 shots through the first two periods alone before adding another seven saves in the third to pick up his fifth straight win. The junior backstop was playing on less than 24-hours rest and suffered an injury early in the first period but still looked on top of his game, finishing with 40 saves on 41 shots.
 
"It's always good when the boys put some numbers up on the scoreboard for us," said Dodds. "It was just one of those things where I think we have all the offensive power in the world but pucks just weren't bouncing our way and tonight we had puck luck."
 
Dodds' counterpart, Blake Richard, deserved a better fate than he got. There wasn't much the backstop could do about Western's first two goals, and by the time he got his wits back it was 4-0 Western. He made a 16 saves in the second and 10 in the third to finish with 33.
 
The award for prettiest goal of the night goes to Brown, whose second marker came off nice plays from Cobbold and Mike DiPaolo. DiPaolo played give-and-go with Cobbold as they entered the zone, spinning and firing a perfect pass to Brown when he got the puck back. Brown made no mistake, reaching to tip the puck through Richard's wide-open legs.
 
Neither team was able to cash in on the power play, largely due to the play of both goaltenders. The score sheet shows that Western had one more power play than Windsor, although three of their infractions came with the game out of reach near the end of a wild third period.
 
In the end, the game looked more like a playoff matchup than anything else, even despite the large margin between the teams. With just two games left in the schedule and the division lead on the line, Western isn't about to take any game for granted.
 
"These teams are fighting for playoff spots and where they want to be in the standings," said Brown. "At the end of the day we want to have home ice and finish first place.
 
"We've got a tough war with York and we're battling with them right now so hopefully we can finish up strong these last two games."
 
NOTES: DiPaolo's assist was his second point since joining the Mustangs in January… Matt Marantz was held off of the score sheet after rejoining the team from injury last night. He had two assists on Friday against Toronto… Cobbol, Brown, and Furlong all finished with multi-point games, combining for seven points on the afternoon. Furlong had a late empty-netter…