Spartans tighten grip on 1st place with offensive outburst in win over SFU

On the strength of six different goal-scorers and Grade-A goaltending from Silas Matthys, Trinity Western University came away with a 6-2 victory over Simon Fraser University on Thursday evening at the Langley Events Centre.

After the Clan opened the scoring early in the first period, the Spartans responded with three goals in just over three minutes to take a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. SFU closed within one before the end of the first, but TWU tallied a pair in the second and one more in the third to pick up its fourth win in a row.

With the victory, TWU (12-2-0-2) is now seven points clear of second place Victoria in the BCIHL standings and 10 points ahead of both Selkirk and SFU. The Spartans are a win or an Eastern Washington loss away from clinching a playoff spot.

The Spartans got goals from Jamie Russell, PJ Buys, Mattias Schmitt, Jamey Kreller, Cody Fidgett and Florian Niedermaier. Schmitt, Russell and Buys also collected one assist each.

Nick Sandor and Mathew Berry-Lamontagna replied with goals for SFU.

TWU’s Matthys made 35 saves for the win, while SFU’s Jordan Liem took the loss after stopping 18 of the 22 shots he faced. The Clan’s Andrew Parent made two saves on four shots.

TWU was 0 for 2 on the power play while SFU was 1 for 7.

The Clan outshot TWU 37-26.

The two teams both have the rest of the weekend off and will face off against each other again Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at the LEC.

“Tonight, what I was really happy with was that we got depth of scoring,” said Spartans coach Barret Kropf. “All four lines contributed tonight. Our penalty killing was kicking again and we did a great job of killing off those penalties. At the end of the day we need to find a way to take less penalties and stay more disciplined…but overall our guys probably played a good 40 minutes out of that 60 and we’ll keep improving on that.”

Simon Fraser got off to a quick start, as the Clan’s Berry-Lamontagna opened the scoring on a power play at 5:25 of the first period. TWU tied the game 1-1 with 9:21 left in the first period, when Buys took a pass from Fidgett in the slot and rifled it past Liem. Schmitt also picked up an assist on the play.

Trinity Western kept coming as Russell scored with 6:47 left in the first period on a nifty play that saw him drive to the net off the right wing and tuck it past Liem on the far side. Just over a minute later, Buys sprung Fidgett on a breakaway and the Spartans leading scorer sniped his 19th goal of the season to give TWU a 3-1 edge. The goal chased Liem in favour of Andrew Parent.

Before the period was out SFU’s Sandor closed the gap to 3-2 when he snuck an off-speed shot through the legs of Spartans goalie Matthys.

“It was important to hit the reset button after that first 20,” Kropf said. “Once we got up 3-1, we got a little too comfortable and started turning the puck over. In intermission we talked about…being more responsible with the puck. In the second and third period we did that and ended up getting some opportunities because of it.”

Just over three minutes into the second period, the Spartans' Kreller scored his first goal of the season when he slipped a back hand shot upstairs past Parent. Niedermaier then got in on the goal scoring action with a wrister that beat Parent at 6:57 of the middle frame. The goal sent Parent back to the bench and Liem back to the crease.

Schmitt rounded out the scoring for TWU with 1:34 left in the game on a spin-o-rama attempt that found its way underneath Liem and to the back of the net.

Game Notes: The Spartans have not dropped a game since a 5-4 shootout loss against SFU Nov. 29…TWU is now 7-0-0-1 in its last eight games…the Spartans last regulation loss was a 3-1 setback on Oct. 31 against Victoria.