Spartans drop 6th straight after being overpowered on the road by SFU

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A strong first period was not enough for Trinity Western University of Saturday night as they dropped a 7-1 decision to SFU in B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League action at the Bill Copland Sports Centre in Burnaby.

The loss gives the Spartans a 5-7-0 record in league action, while the Clan move to 7-1-0.

"We skated with them for the first period but we had a few penalties in the second and SFU capitalized," commented TWU head coach Barret Kropf. "We're continuing to battle through a cluster of injuries and it's hard to get any sort of consistency with our lines and matchups when we’re so banged up."

"We had our scoring chances on power plays but at the end of the day we obviously didn’t come away with the win. We have to find a way to be better and keep chipping away. We're trying to find measurable things that we can build on and I thought in third period, we tried to outhit and outshoot them and create some turnovers and I think we accomplished that and had a solid period to build on."

SFU finished the night with a 32-20 edge in shots on goal.

Simon Fraser's Yan Kalashnikov opened the scoring at 15:36 of the first period before TWU's Joey Walter scored the lone Spartan goal of the evening with 5:55 remaining in the frame.

On that goal, TWU took advantage of an SFU turnover in their own end before Jamie Russell's shot from the point went off SFU goalie Andrew Parent and Walter was able to knock in the rebound. Andrew Wheeler also earned an assist on the goal.

But SFU replied quickly, as Josh McKissock scored at 4:30 on a penalty shot to give the Clan the 2-1 lead heading into the second.

In the middle period Simon Fraser broke the game open with goals at 13:46 by Aaron Enns, 8:28 by Jono Ceci and 25 seconds later at 8:03 by Colton Schock to lead 5-1 after 40 minutes.

Ceci got his second of the game at 15:57 of the final period, while Mike Ball made the final 7-1 with a goal at 6:49 of third period.

TWU's Harry Fredeman played the first two periods, while Silas Matthys played the final period for the Spartans. SFU's Andrew Parent played the full 60 minutes for the Clan.

Next up for the Spartans is a rematch with Simon Fraser on Thursday night at the Langley Events Centre for the final game of the first semester. Start time is scheduled for 7:00 PM.

Puck Drops: SFU took all three stars: 1st Nick Sandor, 2nd Jono Ceci, 3rd Andrew Parent…each team went 0-3 on their respective power plays…TWU has now lost six straight games.