Fontaine nets overtime winner to lift TWU past Mariners at LEC

Trinity Western University third year forward Jarrett Fontaine scored 44 seconds into overtime to lift the Spartans to a 3-2 victory over the visiting Vancouver Island Mariners in BCIHL action Friday night at the Langley Events Centre.

The win improves the first place Spartans to 12-2-0-1 (25 points), while the loss drops the second place Mariners to 9-5-0-2 (20 points).

The Spartans looked like they had the game won in regulation as they led 2-1 and were on the power-play with 1:50 remaining in the game. But VIU’s Brett Witala had other ideas as he got the puck past TWU’s Lucas Mills to tie the game with 1:32 remaining.

Vancouver Island opened the scoring with a power play marker from Garrett Murray at the 3:30 mark of the first period. TWU first year forward Logan Casavant tied the game at 1-1 with his own power play goal at 16:50, with the assists going to third year forward Spencer Roberts and fifth year defenseman Jacob Mills.

The Spartans took the lead a 1:45 later when fifth year forward Florian Niedermaier scored on the power play, with Roberts and Mills once again earning assists. Neither team found the back of the net for over 40 minutes until Witala’s tying goal to push the game to overtime.

TWU’s Lucas Mills made 25 saves to earn the win, while Matt Huber made 35 saves in the VIU loss.

“There were moments where it had a playoff feel in terms of the pace and the effort," says TWU head coach Barret Kropf. "I think it’s good to get some of those kinds of games in now to see what we need to improve as well as giving some of the young players some good experience. Obviously we’re not happy giving up a point to the team that’s chasing us, but at the same time, we played the way we wanted to play the game and we just need to tighten up a few areas and go from there."

“I could keep talking about Fontaine every game. He saves the game at one end and then scores the winner. He’s not the only who had good efforts tonight, but he was good once again. But VIU is a good hockey team and we have to give them respect because they battled back to get a point. So we’ll get a good rest tonight and go at it again tomorrow.”

The Spartans finished the night with a 38-27 edge in shots on goal. · TWU finished the night 2-4 on the power play, while VIU finished at 1-4.

The Spartans are now 4-0 against the Mariners this season. All games were one goal games, with two going into overtime.

The Spartans and Mariners will play again Saturday at 12:00 PM at the Langley Events Centre. The game can be seen live on HockeyTV.