Mills picks up league-leading 11th win as Spartans sweep island road trip

Trinity Western University scored five goals for the second consecutive night as they defeated the Vancouver Island University Mariners by a 5-2 score on Saturday evening at the Nanaimo Ice Centre.

TWU (19-3-0-1) had goals from five different goal scorers, as Evan Last, Hayden Guilderson, Dustin Deugau, Logan Casavant and Josh Sylvain all scored for the defending champion Spartans.

In scoring a goal and assist, forward Evan Last moved into first in BCIHL scoring with 33 points (15 goals, 18 assists) in 22 games. Spartans teammate Logan Casavant also potted two points, and now sits second in league scoring with 32 points (11 goals, 21 assists).

TWU goaltender Lucas Mills stopped 24 of 26 Mariners shots for his league-leading 11th win of the season. He sits two wins up of Vancouver Island (11-8-0-2) goaltender Jeremy Balyk for the lead (9). Balyk stopped 32 of 37 TWU shots for the Mariners, as his record drops to 9-5-0-0.

Joe Lech and Adam Morton scored the lone Mariners goals.

Last scored the opening goal for TWU less than five minutes into the game, beating Balyk to make it 1-0. After the majority of the rest of the first period went scoreless, Guilderson scored his ninth of the season with 50 seconds left to make it 2-0.

Vancouver Island then responded at the 6:29 mark of the second period, as Lech beat Mills to cut the Mariners deficit in half. Less than nine minutes later TWU responded, as defenceman Deugau scored off a Josh Bruce feed to regain the Spartans two-goal lead.

Into the third period the Mariners again responded, with defenceman Morton scoring near the midway mark of the frame to make it 3-2 TWU. Casavant would score a power play goal at 9:15 to make it 4-2, before the Spartans closed out the win with a Sylvain goal with 6:52 left to cap the scoring and lift the Spartans to the 5-2 win.

TWU finished 1-for-1 on the man advantage, while Vancouver Island’s powerplay was 0-for-1.

"It was another great 60-minute effort from our guys tonight," says TWU head coach Barret Kropf. "Coming into the weekend it was one of our goals to do that in each of our two games, and we can confidently say we did that. Tonight’s win also showed our depth, getting scoring throughout our lineup."

"“It felt like another playoff game tonight. Vancouver Island battled really hard and gave us a good test in preparation for the playoffs next month. It was also great to come out of the weekend without any injuries. I’m really proud of how the guys battled today, especially coming out of last weekend. We’re looking forward to closing out the regular season and jumping into the playoffs."

Last now sits just one point back of former Selkirk and VIU forward Dallas Calvin (2015-2019) for sixth all-time in league scoring with 122 career points.

The Spartans lost their previous two games against Vancouver Island, both 3-2 losses last weekend (Feb. 15-16). Friday’s game was the final TWU will play against Vancouver Island on the road, as the Spartans will transition to U SPORTS for the 2020/21 season.

Trinity Western wraps up the regular season at home against Simon Fraser University on Friday at George Preston Arena in Langley.