The Temple Owls beat the Towson Tigers 1-0 on Sunday afternoon with Brendan Ondick’s breakaway goal in the first 40 seconds of overtime.

The Owls are on a two-game win streak and have won three of their last four games. 

On Saturday night, the Owls beat the Penn State Berks Blue Lions for the second time in seven days. Captain Charles Ghiazza scored two goals in the win, nearly matching his hat trick from the previous victory over the Blue Lions. Defenseman Ryan Trefz and newly-added defenseman Alex Barberini both scored power-play goals.

The Owls played a heavy-hitting and high-tempo game Sunday evening against the Tigers, who had shut out Temple, 3-0, in Maryland on Nov. 3, 2018. 

The Owls took 9 penalties for 26 total penalty minutes, including a 10-minute unsportsmanlike conduct major assessed to Andrew Kaeser in the middle of the second period.

Temple fired 50 shots on Towson’s Jacob Snyder in regulation, including 22 in the third period.

The Owls’ next two games are at home, first with an 8:00 p.m. game against the United States Naval Academy on Friday, followed by a 4:00 p.m. meeting with Cornell University.

The playoff battle is coming down to the wire, with the Owls sitting in fifth place (13 points, two EHCA games remaining) with three weekends remaining in ECHA play. Behind the Owls are the Villanova Icecats (12 points, five ECHA games remaining) Towson (12 points, three ECHA games remaining) and the Lehigh Mountain Hawks (7 points, five ECHA games remaining).

The Oct. 6th, 2018 matchup between Temple and Lehigh, which is currently showing as a conference game in the standings, will not count as a conference game.

The ECHA’s three-point system awards three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime or shootout win, one point for an overtime or shootout loss, and zero points for a regulation loss. The top-six teams in the nine-team conference make the playoffs. 

After the United States Naval Academy matchup on Friday, the Owls’ last ECHA game will be at Villanova on Friday, Feb. 8th.

Photo: Irish Haines