By CLAUDE SCILLEY

As quickly as the Royal Military College Paladins clawed their way back into Friday night’s hockey game, the Toronto Blues took it away.

Actually, it happened quicker than that.

Two goals just 15 seconds apart in the fourth minute of the third period broke a tie and sent Varsity on its way to a 6-3 Ontario University Athletics contest at Constantine Arena.

The outburst spoiled what had been a promising recovery for RMC, which scored three times in a four-minute span late in the second period to overcome a 3-0 Toronto lead. The beleaguered Paladins appeared poised to make a serious run for their first victory of the season before the Blues squeezed the most from a momentary RMC lapse.

An egregious giveaway in the RMC zone led to Toronto’s ridiculously easy go-ahead goal, by Tyler von Engelbrechten, and with the Paladins still reeling, the Blues came right back and Tyler Liukkonen tallied to restore the visitors’ two-goal lead.

The Paladins had some good scoring chances after that but in a period where they were outshot 22-15, they couldn’t get another goal. Coach Adam Shell pulled goaltender Evan Deviller for a sixth skater with two minutes remaining in the third period but RMC couldn’t gain the Toronto zone, and eventually von Engelbrechten scored into an empty net.

It was not only von Engelbrechten’s second goal of the period, but his second goal in 11 games this season.

“You don’t finish and then they do,” Shell said, lamenting RMC’s failure to capitalize on an early scoring opportunity in the third period, when the score was still tied.

“We can play,” he continued. “Offensively, we’re better than we’ve ever been, at least in my time here. We give up a little too much and we don’t finish enough at the right times. Early in the third, especially when they’re coming, and we counter and you get a chance—it’s gotta go in. We’ve got to get up 4-3, 5-3, and let them try and claw back, because they’re better than us.”

Toronto scored a little more than two minutes into the game, and two more goals three minutes apart in the middle of the first period sent the Blues into the first intermission with a 3-0 lead.

“In the first period we were OK with the puck; terrible without the puck,” Shell said. “We didn’t want to play without the puck. The second period was a good period. The second period was terrific—we played more our version of a complete game. We competed on both sides of the puck, with it and without it.

“All of a sudden we got a couple of breaks. It’s funny how it works that way.”

RMC’s first goal, in the game’s 35th minute, came from Mathieu Lavallee, who caught the Blues’ defence flat-footed when he took a long lead pass from Eric Louis-Seize at the Toronto blue line and beat Varsity goaltender Brett Willows with a 25-foot wrist shot off right wing.

John Livingston scored three minutes later, after Jake Bullen stole the puck behind the Toronto goal. He found Brett Pinder at the side of the net, who quickly relayed the puck across the goal crease to Livingston who had the open side of the net to Willows’ left.

It took just 45 seconds for Lavallee to score his second goal of the period, tying the game at 18:20. The goals were his third and fourth of the year, and his first since a two-goal performance Nov. 29 against Concordia.

Connor Cleverley, Russell Turner and Patrick Marsh scored the other goals for Toronto, which won its fourth game in a row to improve to 12-11-1 and move into a fourth-place tie in the West division with Ryerson, which lost 5-2 Friday night at Carleton.

RMC, 0-19-3, was outshot 53-36. It was the sixth time in 15 complete games this year that Deviller has faced 50 shots or more.

The Paladins will host Ryerson Saturday night at 7 o’clock.