The Sarnia Legionnaires fell to the visiting London Nationals 3-1 Thursday night.
Nationals goaltender Gordie O`Dwyer made 30 saves in the win, London went 2 for 4 with the man advantage and Sarnia failed to convert on its six power play opportunities.
Nicholas Beaupre made it 1-0 Nationals at 11:28 of the first period and Sam Van der Zalm followed up with a power play goal at 13:29. London led 2-0 after 20 minutes.
Lucas Chard increased London's lead to three at 11:33 of the second period, another power play goal. The Nationals were up 3-0 and were outshooting Sarnia 26-17 heading to the third period.
The Legionnaires responded in the final frame, outshooting London 14-7. However, Ryan Richardson would score the lone goal for the home-side, his 12th of the season at 12:06, and Sarnia's comeback effort fell short.
"We were playing against a first place team and we had a response, we had a little bite to our game in the third period," said Sarnia Legionnaires Head Coach Derek DiMuzio. "Credit to the boys, we had 14 shots on them in the third period and caused some problems."
DiMuzio also discussed the club's struggles on the power play Thursday night.
"We work on that stuff -- it comes down to execution. We can do it in practice, we were doing it two weeks ago but it disappeared. Guys just need to battle through that, trust the program and trust the strategy behind it."
Legionnaires goaltender Brenden Stroble turned away 30 of the 33 shots he faced in the loss.
Sarnia is now 9-24-0-1 on the season. The club is back in action Sunday afternoon in Leamington.
With files from Josh Boyce
