KINGSTON, Ont. (February 21, 2018) - The No.9 Queen's Gaels suffered a 4-2 loss at home in the opening game of their best-of-three series with the Concordia Stingers on Wednesday night.

The Gaels will now have to win on Friday night in Montreal to force a third and final game in the series on Sunday afternoon back in Kingston.

GAME FLOW
The Stingers were able to open the scoring early in the game as Massimo Carozza was able to deflect a point shot from Matthieu Desautels with his leg and the puck caught Kevin Bailie (Belleville, Ont.) going the wrong way. 

After a Warren Steele (Williamsburg, Ont.) penalty had just expired, a loose puck in the crease found it's way to the side of the net where a wide open Raphael Lafontaine made not mistake to bury his second of the playoffs. Just 58 seconds later the Gaels were able to respond. After Marc-Antoine Turcotte made a glove save off a shot from Cory Genovese (Hespeler, Ont.), Darcy Greenaway (Wilton, Ont.) was able to deposit the puck past Turcotte to cut the Stinger lead in half.

In the second period, Concordia was able to extend their lead to two goals once again. At the 15:48 mark of the frame, a puck took a strange deflection in front of Bailie and William Gignac found the puck on his stick for a tap-in goal past a confused Bailie. After 40 minutes the Gaels found themselves trailing 3-1.

In the third, Queen's was once again able to make it a one-goal game. Slater Doggett (Oakville, Ont.) dished the puck to Eric Ming (Williamstown, Ont.) who made no mistake for his second of the playoffs, cutting the Stinger lead to 3-2.

The Gaels had a late power play in the game but couldn't find an equalizer. With their net empty it was Stingers captain Philippe Hudon who scored into the empty net to secure the win 4-2.

Bailie finished with 23 saves while Turcotte picked up the win stopping 32 pucks fired his way.

BY THE NUMBERS
0 - Games won by the home team in last year and this year's series between the Gaels and Stingers
3 - Wins this year including playoffs for Concordia over the Gaels
1st - Gaels will look for their first win of the series on Friday night

UP NEXT
Queen's will travel to Montreal to take on Concordia in game two of their best-of-three series this Friday night. Puck-drop is set for 7:30 pm and the action can be seen live on OUA.tv.