Tidy the hero as Clan shutout Trinity Western to sweep weekend series

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Simon Fraser University’s Brandon Tidy scored midway through the second period and Jono Ceci added an empty-netter in the third as the Clan beat Trinity Western University by a 2-0 score on Saturday at the Bill Copeland Sports Centre.

A night after the teams combined for 15 goals in a 10-5 SFU win, both teams tightened up their own ends in back-and-forth thriller.

However, the final result was still the same, with the Clan nabbing all four points from a critical weekend series. The loss drops TWU to 11-7-0-1 while the win puts SFU five points clear of the Spartans for first place with a record of 14-5-0-0.

Jordan Liem stopped all 33 shots he faced to earn the win for the Clan while the Spartans Aaron Oakley made 24 saves – many of them of the high-quality variety – in the loss.

Despite TWU having eight power play opportunities, the Spartans offence was shutout for the first time this year.

“I’ve been saying this for a while, but I believe this league is the best hockey outside of the Canucks in the Lower Mainland,” said Spartans coach Barret Kropf. “Tonight was a great display of two high-calibre teams who competed hard for a full 60 minutes. I thought we battled hard. We have a ton of injuries and every guy who drew into the lineup tonight played to their full potential."

"Full credit to Simon Fraser. They’re also banged up and they competed hard. It’d be great if people could catch wind of this league and the quality of young student-athletes who are competing hard every night."

“We’ve got five games left and then the playoffs and so it’s just going to get more intense and there’s more great hockey to be played in the coming weeks.”

After a scoreless first period, the Spartans came out flying in the second, but it was the Clan who was rewarded. While TWU outshot the home side 17-9, SFU’s Tidy broke the deadlock at 11:54, scoring what would prove to be the game-winner. Tyler Basham and Ceci picked up assists.

In the third period the Clan outshot TWU 9-7 and held off the Spartans until finally sealing the game with Ceci’s unassisted tally with 37 seconds left. With 1:23 left in the game, TWU’s Kaleb Denham took a roughing penalty that all but buried the Spartans comeback efforts.

TWU and SFU will meet again Feb. 13 when the Spartans will travel to Burnaby.