Story by Brock Ormond
Photo: OJHL Images/Wellington Dukes
A spirited effort by the Mississauga Chargers was not enough to overpower the Wellington Dukes on Friday night.
Luke Strickland scored a pair to help the Dukes defeat Mississauga 6-3 at Lehigh Arena, for their fifth victory in a row.
An even first period saw each team score twice, with Jared Langdon jumpstarting the Dukes with his eighth of the season, beating Chargers goalie Braeden Shaikh through a screen pitched by David Campbell.
Mississauga jumped into the lead with two goals in a little more than two minutes from James McLean and Ryan Schaap, but it was short-lived.
10 seconds after Schaap’s go-ahead marker, Ryan Cutler hit Strickland for a tap-in to even the score heading into the intermission.
Jacob Vreugdenhil and Ed Moskowitz both notched their 22nd goals of the season in period two, with Vreugdenhil partially setting up Moskowitz for what turned out to be the winning goal.
Strickland chipped in his second of the game on a powerplay 27 seconds into the third for some insurance, but the Chargers kept hanging around and recut into their deficit courtesy of a Jack Ziliotto snipe.
The Dukes simply had too much depth however, and Matheson Mason pocketed his 18th of the year in a vacant Mississauga cage to round out the scoring.
Luke LaPalm and Ryan Cutler each picked up two assists, Ethan Sullivan, Jacob Dietz, Connor Hunt, Moskowitz, Vreugdenhil, Julien Jacob, and Barret Joynt all added single helpers.
Jacob Osborne was the winning goaltender with 23 saves, with the Dukes outshooting Mississauga 42-26 to improve to 29-9-2-2 on the season.
