Box Score
 
Guelph, Ont. – The Guelph Gryphon men's hockey team beat the Toronto Varsity Blues on Halloween night with a final score of 5-3 at the Gryphon Centre. The Gryphons advance to 5-3-0 on the season while the Varsity Blues drop to 4-3-0.
 
Brett Appio (Bolton, Ont.) led the Gryphons with a pair of goals in the win while Andrew Merrett (Vernon, BC) and Robert De Fulviis (Toronto) chipped in with a goal apiece.
 
The game started out physical, with a big hit from Toronto player Jeff Brown (Toronto, Ont.) which resulted in a penalty for a hit to the head and a 10-minute misconduct only 14 seconds into the game. The Gryphons were not able to set up anything in their power play however and the Varsity Blues successfully killed it off. The Gryphons were able to use their speed to capitalize on the Toronto mistakes, with a backhanded pass from Robert De Fulviis to Carlos Amestoy (Toronto) early in the period after a breakaway was the first close call for the Gryphons, but Amestoy was unable to beat the goalie and the game stayed scoreless. It would be the Varsity Blues who would get on the board first after a slashing penalty on De Fulviis put them on the power play. Michael Markovic (Toronto, Ont.) would slip it in the bottom right corner after a pass from Lane Werbowski (Winnipeg, Man.) and Garrett Sheehan (Cremona, Alta.) to make it 1-0 going into the second period.
 
The second period started much like the first with a penalty against the Varsity Blues for interference at the 21-second mark. The Gryphons were able to capitalize on the power play at 1:26 with a goal by Andrew Merrett from inside the crease to tie it up, with Teal Burns (Prince Rubert, BC) on the assist. The scoring would be back and forth with Toronto scoring only a minute later to make it 2-1 with Tyler Liukkonen (Sault Ste Marie, Ont.) putting it into the bottom left hand corner, with Jeff Brown (Toronto, Ont.) and Blake Boddy (Scarborough, Ont.) on the assists. The Gryphons responded shortly after with Andrew Merrett powering through the neutral zone, passing to Brett Appio who scored down low to make it 2-2 for the Gryphons.
 
The Gryphons were able to capitalize on a Toronto turn over, with Kyle Neuber taking it up, eventually finding De Fulviis who put it through the five hole to make it 3-2 for the Gryphons at 13:30. The lead was short lived with Toronto scoring at 18:43 after Markovic was able to beat Gryphon goalie Chris McDougall (Copper Cliff), tipping one in the right side of the net after a pass from Tyler Von Engelbrechten (Markham, Ont.) to make it 3-3. A penalty called on Von Engelbrechten would put the Gryphons on a power play in the final minutes of the period. Guelph was able to use the man advantage to score, with Neuber taking a shot from inside the crease after a pass from Michael Hasson (Ariss, Ont.) and Teal Burns to make it 4-3 to end the second period.
 
There was back and forth action to start the third period with shots on goal even for both teams. It wasn't until the second half of the period that the intensity picked up and the Varsity Blues started to take control of the game. The Gryphons were able to bring their intensity up to match, with Broussard taking a shot that would end up going over the bar. Toronto would pull their goalie in the last minute of play to try and overtake the Gryphons, but Brett Appio would end up scoring on the empty net making the final score 5-3 for Guelph.
 
Chris McDougall turned aside 28 of 31 shots in the win while Garrett Sheehan made 24 saves in the loss.
 
Although the Gryphons outscored the Varsity Blues they were not able to outshoot them, with a final shot count of 29-31 in favour of Toronto.
 
The Gryphons hit the ice next against the McGill Martlets on Friday November 8^th at 7 p.m. in Montreal.