GUELPH, ON – An up-and-down season for the Guelph Gryphons men's hockey team is once again on the upswing.
 
The Gryphs are back above the .500 mark after a tight 2-1 victory on Friday night at the Gryphon Centre over the visiting Nipissing Lakers. It was their third straight win, with only one game left before a long holiday break that won't see the Gryphons back on the ice until the New Year.
 
"We're above .500 again, and we want to stay that way," head coach Shawn Camp said of his club, which now boasts an 8-7 record in the highly competitive OUA West Division.
 
"We look forward to seeing if we can finish off the first half with a big win (on Saturday). It's really critical that we have a good effort again."
 
A win is a win, and Camp was happy to claim Friday's victory despite it being much closer than perhaps it should have been. The Lakers came to town having won only four of 13 games so far this season, but they gave the Gryphs a tough battle.
 
"Nipissing's a team that just doesn't stop working. While we had some good chances early, we were not able to capitalize on them, and as a result the game stayed tight," Camp said.
 
"In the third period we bent but didn't break, which was really good to see for our guys. Good to see that we can grind out a low-scoring, tight game like that."
 
The Gryphs got the only goal of the first period as Trevor Morbeck scored his sixth of the season, picking up a rebound and tucking it behind Nipissing netminder Domenic Graham.
 
Guelph counterpart Scott Stajcer stood tall to keep the Lakers off the board, and got some help from his goal posts, including one shot from Nipissing's Steve Deeg that caught both the post and the crossbar just past the midway point of the second period.
 
Less than a minute later, Tryg Strand of the Gryphs was rewarded for some hard work that saw him beat all five Nipissing skaters to a loose puck in the slot and put it past Graham for what turned out to be the winning goal.
 
"Right away, he saw where the puck was going, he outworked guys to get to the puck, and he had a great shot on the play. Great to see him get rewarded for that hard work," Camp said of Strand, a third-year winger from Invermere, BC.
 
Erik Robichaud of the Lakers did finally solve Stajcer on a two-man advantage early in the third period, but the veteran goaltender shut the door after that – albeit with some more help from his goal post.
 
"The posts were friendly to me today. I enjoy that," Stajcer, a fourth-year player from Cambridge, said with a smile.
 
His grace under fire came in handy as the Lakers refused to fold, buzzing around the Guelph net and threatening right up until the final seconds. Stajcer ended up making 28 saves to secure the victory.
 
"He's a very calming influence for our team, which is so critical when it gets hectic like it did late in the game," Camp said of his goalie, who was the starting goalie for the Ontario Hockey League title-winning Owen Sound Attack in 2011.
 
Stajcer, for his part, was happy to give the credit to his defencemen.
 
"The D played great, kept (the Lakers) to the outside, and I got to see a lot of the shots," he said, adding the focus now shifts to Saturday's game against the Laurentian Voyageurs.
 
"The first half of the season hasn't gone the way we planned. But we've got a great team, and we want to keep winning. Going into the break with four straight wins would be huge. Plus, it's Hockey Day in Gryphonville, so everyone will be pretty pumped up. It should be fun."
 
Puck drop is at 3 p.m. and will be one of the highlights of Hockey Day in Gryphonville, which sees a large contingent of men's hockey alumni back on campus for the day.
 
Festivities for the day include an alumni shinny game at 12 noon, and an evening banquet in which the 1996-97 Gryphons squad will be honoured in what is the 20^th anniversary of their CIAU championship.