A trio of London goals in an eight-minute span of the opening period crushed any hopes of the St. Thomas Stars forcing a Game 7 in their Sutherland Cup playoff series.
With goals from London’s Bradyn Santavy, Noah Arsenault and Rylan Bowers, the Stars found themselves in too deep of a hole in the early going Saturday evening at the Joe Thornton Community Centre as the Nationals prevailed 7-3 to advance to the next round.
Eliminating any possibility of back-to-back St. Thomas wins to send the series back to the Western Fair District tomorrow night for the seventh and deciding game.
Tyler Alexander and Mathieu Paris both picked up their first markers of the series in the middle frame to narrow the gap to 4-2 with Lucas Chard responding for London.
The Nats blew the game open in the final 20 minutes as Jeff Burridge hit for his fifth and sixth goals of the series and Nicholas Beaupre tallied his first.
Tristen Roberts closed out the St. Thomas scoring for the 2021-22 campaign with two seconds remaining to play.
Tyler Roberts went the distance in net for St. Thomas.
London advances to play the Chatham Maroons in one semifinal series while Leamington will face the winner of the LaSalle versus St. Marys series which is knotted at three games apiece with the deciding game Sunday afternoon.
