By CLAUDE SCILLEY

For the Queen’s Golden Gaels, it was undoubtedly a refreshing change.

A team that has allowed an opponent to score the game-winning goal in the third period or overtime eight times this year, the Gaels instead were the assertive team in the final stanza at the Memorial Centre Tuesday night, scoring three times in the last 10 minutes of the game for a 6-4 win over the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks.

It was the second win in the last three games for Queen’s, which improved to 10-12-1 and moved into sole possession of sixth place in the East division of Ontario University Athletics, two points ahead of Tech.

With three games remaining in the regular schedule, Queen’s is four points behind fifth-place Nipissing. That’s an important consideration, since the teams that finish sixth through eighth will draw one of Trois-Rivieres, McGill or Carleton in the first round of playoffs, three teams that are all nationally ranked—a bit of a pick-your-poison fate the rest of the division is keen to avoid.

It looked for a time that the Gaels were about to choose that dubious opportunity, however, when they allowed four goals in a span of a little more than seven minutes in the first half of the second period, as Tech turned a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 lead.

Throughout the first 40 minutes of the game the Gaels, even on power plays, seemed strangely reluctant to shoot the puck. In the third period, however, that changed. All three goals came on long shots that might be considered low percentage: A screened shot from the point that was deflected and a couple of 30-footers that seemed to catch Ridgebacks goaltender Brendan O’Neill by surprise.

It was as if O’Neill was expecting the Gaels to dink around with the puck as they had throughout the first part of the hockey game.

“When you’re down 4-3, and given the way we played in the second period, we had to throw everything at the net,” Gaels coach Brett Gibson said. “(O’Neill) looked a bit shaky the whole night and that’s why we said just fire the puck at him in the third.”

Darcy Greenaway scored two of those three third period goals, and three on the night. It was the second three-goal performance in the last five games for Greenaway, who has seven goals in that time.

Now with 15 goals this year, the former Kingston Frontenac from Ernestown is the top-scoring rookie in Canada.

There was no secret why the Gaels suddenly fell apart in the second period.

“Turnover on the first goal, turnover on the second goal, turnover on the third goal, turnover on the fourth goal,” Gibson said, “and we had full possession of every puck.

“It’s unacceptable. It’s been the Achilles heel of this hockey team all year. If you ask anyone in this dressing room the reason we lose hockey games, it’s because we turn the puck over.”

Immediately after the fourth goal Gibson replaced starting goalkeeper Kevin Bailie with the little-used Chris Clarke, the second-year goaler from Fall River, N.S., who played major junior with Gatineau and Halifax of the Quebec Major league.

In eight games last year, Clarke had a 1.92 goals-against average and a .934 save percentage with Queen’s, but he had played just four games this year behind Bailie, last year’s national rookie of the year, and just one period since Nov. 22.

That was last Friday at McGill, a scoreless third period in a game the Gaels lost 4-1. After his performance Tuesday night—one that included a sparkling close-in save against Mitch Bennett late in the third period—he’s now played the last 49 minutes for Queen’s without allowing a goal.

“The save he made at the end was pretty impressive,” Gibson said. “It’s been a tough year for him, when he watches the whole time.

“He’s making my decisions (about who will play) a little tougher.”

Bailie was shaken up and was tended on the ice after he got run over late in the first period, but Gibson said that wasn’t the reason he was replaced.

“It more a change of momentum pull,” he said. “It wasn’t anything Kevin did. I just felt the game was slipping away from us and I had to make some kind of a change.

“Their coach commented that it was a risky move that I made that paid off. Sometimes those moves don’t but tonight it did. Maybe it woke our guys up a bit and they said ‘We’ve got to pick our games up.’”

Andew Wiebe, who opened scoring in the game’s fourth minute, Corey Bureau, with a power-play goal that stopped the bleeding in the second period, and Ryan Bloom, who put the Gaels back in front for good at 12:40 of the third period, scored the other goals for Queen’s.

James Woodcroft, Jesse Stoughton, Jordan Ramsay and Alex Derlis shared the Tech goals.

The Gaels resume play Saturday night at Laurentian, against the fourth-place Voyageurs.