Fidgett, Schmitt lead TWU offence in home win over University of Victoria

Trinity Western University goaltender Silas Matthys made 37 saves while Cody Fidgett added two goals and an assist and Mattias Schmitt had a three-point night to lead the Spartans to a 5-1 win over the University of Victoria on Friday at the Langley Events Centre.

The win is the Spartans sixth in a row and improves TWU’s league-leading record to 14-2-0-2.

With the victory, the Spartans also opened an 11-point lead on the second place Vikes (8-6-0-3) with just six games remaining on TWU’s regular season schedule. The Spartans can clinch first place in the BCIHL standings with either two wins, two Victoria losses or a win and a Vikes loss.

PJ Buys and Sam Gemmell also scored for TWU while Adam Klein scored Victoria’s lone goal. The Vikes outshot TWU 38-29.

“It was great to get all four points out of this weekend,” said Spartans coach Barret Kropf, whose team also beat Simon Fraser 5-3 Thursday. “We continue to get all-star play out of Silas and some of our younger guys are really starting to contribute and make play.”

“Overall, a guy like Blair Murphy was a plus-four on the night and made some big hits and controlled the puck in our zone. I thought Josiah (Cockrill), who was with Murph on the back end, got better as the game went on and that comes with confidence in playing alongside Murph.”

“There are a lot of positives to take out of the game and we’ll just keep taking it one game at a time. We want to make sure we’re not taking any short cuts and we keep preparing the same way that we have. We need to keep fighting every night for everything we got.”

Buys sparked the TWU offence midway through the first period by the scoring his 10th goal of the season at 7:20 of the opening frame. Gemmell, who was playing in just his fourth game of the year, then doubled TWU’s lead with his first goal of the season at 14:47.

However, with just 50 seconds left in the period, Klein scored to make it a 2-1 game going into the intermission.

Midway through the second period, the Spartans got their power play going as Fidgett scored his 20th goal of the season to give TWU a 3-1 edge. With just over three minutes to play in the middle stanza, Schmitt scored to give TWU a three-goal cushion.

Fidgett rounded out the scoring with 3:40 left in the third period with his league-leading 21st goal and 33rd point of the season.

The Spartans are back on the ice on Friday, Jan. 30 at 7:00 PM when they host Eastern Washington at the LEC. That night, the Spartans will honour their seniors prior to the game in a special ceremony.

Game Notes: TWU has just one regular season game remaining at the LEC this year, as the Spartans will play their final home game on Feb. 27 at the Langley Sportsplex…TWU was 1 for 6 on the power play while Victoria was 0 for 6…this past weekend featured a men’s hockey alumni reunion.