Thanks to a third period game-winning goal from captain Brad Bakken, the Trinity Western Spartans earned their first win of the BCIHL season by knocking off Selkirk College by a 3-1 score on Friday night at the Langley Events Centre.
After taking a 1-0 lead into the third period, the Spartans allowed Selkirk to tie the contest on a Jordan Wood snipe midway through the final frame before Bakken’s goal restored their lead for good with just over nine minutes to play.
The Spartans' Brandon Long opened the scoring 8:53 into the second period and then added the insurance marker into an empty net with 24 seconds to play in the third for his fourth and fifth goals of the season.
Trinity Western goalie Tim Zwiers made 24 saves in the win while Selkirk’s Spenser Wong made 42 stops in a losing effort.
The win improved the Spartans record to 1-5-0 while the loss drops Selkirk’s record to 1-4-0.
“The boys kept battling and we’ve stuck to our goals over the last three games to get our shots and we got our shots tonight and that is the key to our game,” said Spartans coach Dwayne Lowdermilk of his team, who outshot Selkirk 45-25. “We have to be able to drive the net, get shots on net and get the rebounds.
“It’s all about setting goals.There are guys there who have phenomenal shots but you don’t get the breakaway every time to get that shot away. So when you’re in that slot area you’ve got to shoot and that’s what we did tonight.”
In the first period, the Saints were the aggressors early on as they laid a few big hits before the Spartans woke up and started to push back. But from there it was a relatively even first period, as neither team garnered much in the way of momentum nor did they generate a whole lot of scoring opportunities.
While the Spartans outshot the Saints 13-11, neither Zwiers nor Wong were ever seriously tested. Trinity Western’s best chance of the period came midway through the frame off the the stick of Kye Benjaminsen after he made an end-to-end rush, dangled through a pair of Saints defencemen only to rifle it wide to the short side of Wong.
At the other end of the ice, Selkirk’s only real quality offensive chance came with just under a minute left in the period when Derrik Motz’s shot off the right wing beat Zwiers but rang off the crossbar.
Other than that, the only real excitement of the opening frame came with five minutes to play in the period when a post-whistle brouhaha was sparked in Zwiers crease. Nearly everyone on the ice got involved and the end result was a two minute minor to Trinity Western’s Dylan Mooney and 10-minute misconducts to the Spartans' Long and Brendan Elenko and Selkirk’s Nick Cecconi and Scott Traverse.
In the second, the Saints got themselves into penalty trouble early, giving Trinity Western a pair of 5-on-3 powerplays before the period was five minutes old. While the Spartans struggled to create chances with the man-advantage, eventually the home side capitalized when Long put Trinity Western up 1-0. The Spartans forward took a pass in the slot from Matt Chaput and buried it just inside the left post past the blocker of Wong.
From there, the Spartans looked the better side, outshooting Selkirk 16-9 by the end of the period and doing well to keep the Saints from generating much in the way of quality towards Zwiers.
After a lacklustre start to the third from both sides, the Saints made things interesting when they evened the game on a goal by Jordan Wood. The Selkirk forward, bursting off the left wing, whipped a shot top shelf on the short side that beat Zwiers over his blocker. Scott Jago was credited with the assist.
But it wasn’t long after that the Spartans retook the lead when Bakken buried a rebound from in tight to give the home side a 2-1 advantage. After Sam Gemmell put a shot on net from the slot and Trevor Beaupre hacked at a rebound from on top of the crease, the puck bounced to Bakken and he snapped it home, scoring his second of the campaign.
With just over two minutes left Selkirk’s Jago ripped a shot that carromed off both posts, the left then the right, but stayed out. Long added the empty-netter late.
The Spartans next game is Saturday at 1:00 p.m. when they will host Okanagan. The Saints will play Simon Fraser Saturday at 7:00 p.m. Game Notes: The Spartans took a season-low three minor penalties…Trinity Western was one for seven on the powerplay while Selkirk was zero for three...Selkirk took 46 penalties to Trinity Western’s 26.
VICTORIA
SIMON FRASER
OKANAGAN
LOGAN LAKE
VANCOUVER ISLAN.
