Clan's balanced attack the difference in home shutout win over EWU

Simon Fraser University welcomed the Eastern Washington University Eagles to Bill Copeland Arena for the team's final game of 2014 on Saturday night and the Clan dominated the contest for a full 60-minutes en route to a 4-0 victory.

With the win, SFU moves into second place in the BCIHL and enters the Christmas break with important momentum from a two-game winning streak.

The first period, however, was a rather sloppy affair. The two teams combined for eight penalty minutes and couldn’t find much offensive cohesiveness. SFU did fire 16 shots towards the EWU goal but couldn’t find the back of the net. The frame ended tied 0-0.

EWU started 19-year-old goaltender John Kiepe and was missing BCIHL leading scorer Beau Walker.

In the second period, which has been SFU’s strongest frame all season, the missing pieces for the Eagles began to show. Kiepe, although playing very well, let in three goals as SFU outshot EWU 11-7. The Clan’s depth was on display in the second period as the three goals each came from three different lines. 

The top line of Adam Callegari, Jono Ceci, and Nick Sandor each found the scoresheet once again on Callegari’s goal 22 seconds into the middle period. Matthew Luongo and Pavlo Zerebecky also each recorded their first goals of the season.

The third period was a very important 20 minutes for SFU because they ended their up and down first half of the season by finishing off a full 60-minute effort. In the third, the top line was at it again as Sandor and Callegari combined to feed the puck to Ceci at the side of the net, with which the all time SFU leading scorer made a clinical finish.

Things began to get a little chippy, as expected, with the two teams combining for 50 penalty minutes over the course of the final frame.

Nonetheless, SFU saw out the victory with dominant possession in the final frame, securing goaltender Jordan Liem’s first victory on home ice as well as his first BCIHL shutout.

As mentioned before, SFU ends the Fall semester sitting second in the standings. With the league shaping out to be dominated by the home squads this season, home ice advantage in the playoffs becomes all that more important. SFU will look to carry over their momentum into the second half in order to secure home ice advantage.