GUELPH, Ont. - Something had to give Wednesday night at the Gryphon Centre when the Guelph Gryphons and Queen's Gaels squared off in a re-match of last season's OUA final. With the Gryphons entering the contest with the second most goals in the OUA this season, and the Gaels boasting the second fewest goals allowed in the OUA, it was ultimately the Guelph offence taking over in an 8-2 victory.
Winning their second straight game, the Gryphons used a hat-trick from Giordano Finoro, a pair of goals from Ryan Valentini, three other goal scorers and 28 saves from Brendan Cregan to get a bit of revenge on last year's championship loss.
Coming in to the game, the Gryphons were playing their third contest of the 2020 portion of the schedule, while the Gaels were in their first game back from the break. 
Being able to get their legs quicker than their opposition, the Gryphons jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the opening period. First up, it was Finoro scoring his first of three goals in the game just over two minutes into the contest. Then after killing off a penalty, Guelph was awarded a power-play of their own which they would capitalize on with a goal from Connor Bramwell.
After withstanding a strong surge from the visitors to begin the middle period, the Gryphons then began to take control of the game. Bending but not breaking Guelph continued to hold their two goal lead before adding to it in a big way. Scoring three times in the second-half of the period, with two goals coming from Valentini and one from Matt Kenney, the Gryphons all of a sudden had given themselves a 5-0 lead after two.
Having scored 2:13 into the opening period, Finoro almost matched that perfectly to begin the third scoring 2:12 into the final frame of regulation to put Guelph up 6-0. The Gaels were able to get themselves on the board three minutes later, but the Gryphon's captain responded almost instantly after. It only took Mikkel Aagaard 13 seconds to restore the Guelph six goal advantage and put his team up 7-1. Just shy of the midway point of the third, the Gaels snuck their second goal of the game past Cregan before Finoro tipped home his hat-trick goal to round out the 8-2 win.
"We had a good start to the game and managed to grab the lead early which seemed to give us some confidence," said Gryphon's head coach Shawn Camp. "We were then able to build on that as the game went along."
"The guys were playing the right way today, and because off that we were able to survive Queen's push back in the second period," said Camp. "With that, we were able to keep our momentum throughout the game."
The Gryphons will be right back at it following the win. Guelph will now hop on the bus Thursday and head to St. Catharines to take on the Brock Badgers. Guelph will then return to the Gryphon Centre on Saturday to host the Toronto Varsity Blues.
