Mills shuts the door as TWU blanks Clan, extends win streak to five games

Trinity Western University continued its unprecedented start to a B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League campaign as the Spartans earned their program-record fifth straight win to open the season, beating Simon Fraser University by a 3-0 score on Friday at the Langley Events Centre.

The Spartans scored three third period goals to break a scoreless deadlock through 40 minutes and improve to 5-0 on the year. The loss drops SFU to 5-3.

Logan Casavant opened the scoring when he pounced on rebound in the slot and beat SFU goalie Michael Lenko at 4:28 of the third period.

Just over a minute later, TWU capitalized on a power play opportunity, with Evan Last scoring his fourth goal of the season with a wicked wrister from atop the circles that went bar down past Lenko. The second assist went to Florian Niedermaier, who was playing in his 100th game in the BCIHL.

Sealing the deal was Elijah Vilio, with the TWU defenceman scoring his first goal of the year with 8:44 remaining in the contest.

“The first 20 minutes was awful and it showed that we had been off for two weeks," says TWU head coach Barret Kropf. "In the second, we really had to get focused and get some discipline back into the game – both in terms of taking dumb penalties and playing selfish hockey."

"Once we got that nailed down, I thought we had one of our strongest periods of the year in the third. If you’re giving a grade on the game, it’s probably a B+. Our penalty kill kept us in there and Junior (Lucas Mills) continued to play great hockey. We’re riding a bit of a wave and we have a lot of confidence and hopefully we can continue to build on that.”

Mills made 32 saves to earn his first shutout of the season while Lenko faced 28 shots in the loss.

TWU’s penalty-killing unit was the star of the night, as the Spartans, who were coming off a bye week, killed all eight Clan power plays.

Niedermaier is the third Spartan to join the 100-game club, coming alongside Trevor Beaupre, who finished with 109 games played, and Cody Stephenson, who played 105 games. In those 100 games, he has scored 35 goals and picked up 22 assists.

“He’s such a character guy," says Kropf of Niedermaier. "He’s dealt with injuries and he’s persevered and he’s a real determined guy who has meant a lot to our program. We’re really proud that he’s got the 100.”

UP NEXT: The Spartans travel to Castlegar to play Selkirk College on Nov. 16-17. Both games start a 7:00 PM.