TWU outshoots Eagles but drops 5-3 decision in home opener at LEC

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Despite outshooting Eastern Washington 41-21, the Trinity Western men’s hockey team lost its home-opener 5-3 Friday at the Langley Events Centre.

After a scoreless first period, the Spartans (1-1) Cody Stephenson scored in the second period to give TWU its first lead of the night. However, after that, EWU (2-1) tallied three of the next four goals and went into the third period ahead 3-2.

A pair of third period markers for the Eagles sealed the deal before TWU’s Mattias Schmitt got one back midway through the final frame to make the final score a two-goal difference. The Spartans Jamie Russell had TWU’s other goal.

The Spartans' JP Villeneuve had two assists while Schmitt also had an assist to add to his goal.

The Eagles had five different goal-scorers, including Zach Maxwell, Nick Redding, Jake Flynn, Elliott Martin and Uriah Machuga. Machuga and Maxwell each added one assist while Chase Wharton had two assists.

Spartans goalie Silas Matthys started in net but he allowed five goals in 40 minutes of action while Harry Fredeman played five minutes of the second period and 15 minutes of the third period and stopped the only shot he faced.

Eastern Washington’s Jason Greenwell made 38 saves for the win.

"We lost that battle in net and we just have to be better," said Spartans coach Barret Kropf. "As a team, we only played 40 minutes tonight and that was disappointing. I thought in the second period, we really backed off and thought we were better than we are. But we’re only good because we work hard. We need to put that full 60 minutes together and we’ll aim to do that tomorrow."

The Spartans and Eagles will play a rematch Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Langley Events Centre.