Vikes bounce back to earn a split on crucial Lower Mainland road trip

The University of Victoria was on the road again this weekend, travelling first to Langley to take on the Spartans, and then to Burnaby to face the SFU Clan. They managed to get two out of a possible four points, falling 5-1 to the Spartans and then rebounding nicely to beat Simon Fraser by a 4-2 score.

Friday’s game against the Spartans started off with a goal apiece from PJ Buys and Samuel Gemmell, bringing Trinity West to an early 2-0 lead. However UVic’s own Adam Klein brought the Vikes within one with less than a minute left in the first period. Shots were 12-11 in favour of the Vikes.

The second period was more as the same as the Spartans tallied two more goals, this time from Mattias Schmitt and Cody Fidgett, but the Spartans were again outshot by the Vikes 16-8.

The Spartans continued to build on their lead in the third period when Cody Fidgett got his second goal of the game.

“We did not play well on Friday,” said Vikes head coach Harry Schamhart. “The players weren't focused and did not pay attention to details.”

The Vikes would have to put the loss behind them and focus on the next game, and they did not disappoint. This game had a similar start to it as Matthew Luongo opened the scoring for SFU, but the Vikes answered back quickly with two goals in 38 seconds from James Tindle and Shawn Mueller respectively.

There were no goals in the second period, but the Vikes continued to outshoot SFU 19-11. Not long into the final period Carsen Willians made it 3-1 for UVic.

It was clear that SFU was not going down without a fight however when Tyler Basham brought the Clan within one goal, but it was all over when Shawn Mueller scored his second goal of the game, this time an empty net goal with seven seconds left in the game.

“We demonstrated good team character and were able to bounce back from the poor performance from the previous game," Schamhart said. "Carsen Willians and James Tingle played really well and Scott Legault made some key saves to keep us in the game.”

The next Vikes game is Friday, Febuary 6th at the Ian Stewart Complex against first place Trinity Western. Faceoff is set for 7:00 PM and the game can be viewed live on FAST Hockey.