If the first twelve-plus minutes were any indication, it looked like the Waterloo Warriors were ready to cruise to victory over the Windsor Lancers on Saturday night at home. Then, the Lancers reminded their hosts that it's not how you start, its how you finish.

The Lancers erased an early 3-1 deficit and scored five straight goals in the middle of the game en route to a 7-5 victory over the Warriors in a wild contest on Saturday night at the Columbia Icefield arena. The loss ended Waterloo's win streak at three games.

Spencer Pommels and Evan Stibbard each scored twice and added an assist for the victorious Lancers, who move into a tie for second place in the OUA West division with Waterloo. Both teams now have identical 4-2-0 records, and with Windsor's win over the Warriors, both teams remain perfect on the road in 2012-13.

Four Warriors had a pair of points in the loss – Justin Larson (Buckhorn/) and Kain Allicock (Markham/) had a goal and an assist apiece, while Colin Behenna (Waterloo/) and Micky Sartoretto (Sault Ste. Marie/) each added two assists. Keaton Hartigan (Kitchener/) took the loss between the pipes for the Warriors, while Parker Van Buskirk, who relieved starter Matt Murphy in the first period, was credited with the win for Windsor.

The Warriors got the earliest of jumps out of the gate in the first period, as Josh Woolley (Cambridge/) scored for the third straight game just 24 seconds after puck drop. The teams traded goals quickly just over five minutes later, when Larson made it 2-0 on the man-advantage before Windsor's Matt Beaudoin cut the lead in half. Then, just seconds short of the thirteen-minute mark, Allicock potted his second goal of the season to chase Murphy and give the Warriors a 3-1 lead.

Perhaps the goaltending change was just what the Lancers needed, because they rattled off a dominant stretch of hockey from the waning moments of the first period all the way to the early third. Pommels started it off with his first of the night on the power play, narrowing the Waterloo lead to 3-2 heading into the first intermission. Then, Stibbard, D.J. Turner, and Isak Quakenbush all scored in the second stanza for the Lancers, who turned their early 2-goal deficit into a 5-3 lead, outshooting the Warriors 14-5 in the middle frame.

The Lancers extended their advantage with their fifth straight goal early in the third, when Stibbard scored his second of the game on the power play. To the Warriors' credit, they pushed back and made a game of it, when captain Kirt Hill (Winnipeg/) took a Steve Whitely (Petrolia/) feed and found the back of the net on the man advantage. Then, defenceman Joe Underwood (Canton/) brought the Warriors to the brink of a massive comeback when his point shot found its way past Van Buskirk to make the score 6-5 with 91 seconds remaining.

Unfortunately for the Warriors, that's as close as they would get – as the final seconds ticked down, Pommels, the man who started it all in the first period, salted the game away with an empty-net goal.

After meeting virtually all of their biggest OUA west rivals in the first half-dozen games of the season, the Warriors will now face some less familiar faces as they embark on the four-game OUA east crossover portion of their schedule. That will begin next Friday, as Waterloo will make the long trek to Trois-Rivieres, Quebec to take on the nationally-ranked UQTR Patriotes before facing the defending-national champion McGill Redmen in Montreal on Saturday. Puck drop on both nights is slated for 7pm.

Notes: The Warriors were 2-for-4 on the power play, while the Lancers went 3-for-6…The start of the game was delayed almost 30 minutes after a pane of glass was shattered during the pregame warm-up…Warriors defenceman Robin Clarke (Cambridge/), a walk-on rookie and the only engineering student on the team, made his CIS debut.