OTTAWA --  There will be a new OUA men's hockey champion this year as the defending Queen's Cup victors have fallen. Jareed Steege scored the game-winning tally at 6:41 of overtime and added an assist as sixth-ranked Carleton held off a pesky McGill squad, ranked No.9 in the nation, en route to a 4-3 victory at the CU Ice House arena, Saturday, to capture the OUA East semifinal series 2-1.

The Ravens, who rallied to win the series after dropping Thursday's opener 3-1, followed by a 5-3 win in Montreal two days later. The result put an abrupt end to the 143rd season of men's hockey on the McGill campus.The Redmen finished with a 21-17 record overall.

"I'm proud of the way we battled tonight," said Kelly Nobes, in his ninth season as bench boss at McGill. "We were behind by two heading into the third and played a great period to force overtime. We showed tons of character, coming back and dominating in the period and carried that into overtime.We had our chances to win but a bad bounce off a faceoff and our season's over. It was a disappointing outcome but some growth this season for our group, especially our younger guys. We'll build on that next year with a core group of returning guys and our incoming recruits."

McGill opened the scoring at 16:47 when captain Jerome Verrier , the team;s leading point-getter in each of the past two seasons, tallied his first of the playoffs but that lasted only 39 seconds until Carleton evened the count on Josh Burnside's marker at 17:26. The Ravens added to more in the second, from the sticks of defenceman Evan de Haan (power-play) and Hayden Hulton.

The Redmen rallied in the third to force overtime with goals from freshman Jordan Fournier (his 3rd of the playoffs) and junior Guillaume Gauthier.

McGill which had a 38-31 edge in shots,went 0-for-2 on the power-play, while the Ravens connected on one of their two chances.

Junior goaltender Francois Brassard registered 35 saves for the victory between the pipes for Carleton, while junior Louis-Philip Guindon had 27 saves and took the loss. It was his 29th consecutive start for the Redmen, a team record.

Carleton won three of the five meetings this season but McGill still owns a 36-28-1 record in 65 lifetime confrontations. It also marks the first time since 2004 that no Quebec-based team will qualify for the national championship tournament. Of the four OUA series in the second round, this was the only one that went to the higher seeded team. In Sunday's other OUA matchups, Queen's toppled first-place Ottawa, while Guelph knocked off Ryerson and Western upset Brock. Carleton will now meet Queen's in the OUA Eastern final, while Western meets Guelph in the other best-of-three series.

McGILL MEMENTOS: Other occasions that saw a Quebec-less tournament at Nationals: 1997, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1989 and 1988... This was the last collegiate game for at least three graduating seniors -- forwards Jerome Verrier and Frederic Gamelin, along with defenceman Redgie Bois... Two other seniors, Aaron Armstrong, a transfer from Ryerson who missed the second semester with injuries, and goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon, both have eligibility remaining and could return... Sophomore Keanu Yamamoto earned an assist on the first goal, extending his playoff point-scoring streak to four games. Since being held pointless in the opening game of the playoffs, he posted a 5-4-9 record to lead the team in post-season scoring and is ranked third in the OUA playoff scoring race... Defenceman Dominic Talbot-Tassi tied Yamamoto for the team lead in playoff assists with five. In 25 career post-season contests, he has a stellar 5-24-29 record.

SCORING SUMMARY

OUA SCOREBOARD