CHENEY, Wash. – Trinity Western opened the second semester with a convincing 5-2 win over Eastern Washington, taking advantage of a four-goal second period to pick up their sixth straight win Friday.

Brayden Brown (Calgary) scored twice to lead TWU (11-3-0-0), while Tyler McMinn (Wilsall, Mont.) tallied his first as a Spartan, Joseph Sylvain (Girouxville, Alta.) notched his second of the year and Kade Vilio (Aldergrove, B.C.) scored his eighth goal of the year. Brown's two goals gives him 12 on the year, which has him tied for the BCIHL goal-scoring lead.

The Spartans put 62 shots on goal, while TWU netminder Silas Matthys (Wollerau, Switzerland) stopped 36 of the 38 shots he faced.

TWU has now won eight of their last nine outings. The Eagles are now 1-9-0-1.

After a scoreless first period, Brown opened the scoring at 2:20 of the middle frame, with Jarrett Fontaine (Humboldt, Sask.) and Kaleb Denham (Innisfail, Alta.) picking up assists.

EWU's Jacob Loman equalized just over three minutes later on a power play, but TWU responded with three straight goals before the period was finished.

Vilio sparked the Spartans late barrage, with Stefan Gonzales (Surrey, B.C.) and Jordan Rendle (Surrey) grabbing helpers.

Two minutes later Sylvain scored, with Dylan Sakatch (Calgary) adding the lone assist.

Finally, McMinn scored with 2:33 left in the period to put TWU up 4-1. Brandon Potomak (Aldergrove, B.C.) and Dustin Deugau (Calgary) had the assists.

Brown and EWU's Kyle Blondin traded goals in the third period. Evan Last (Surrey) and Karsten Seidel (Delta, B.C) assisted on Brown's third period marker.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Barrett Kropf
"The first 20 minutes were indicative of being off for the last month and it was a bit of a poorly play opening period. After the first period, we made a few corrections and got our feet going and capitalized.

"I thought we had a good week of practice and prepared well, but coming back from a long break, we still needed to shake off some cobwebs. The guys responded and now we can go into tomorrow's game with a little more focus and hopefully some more jump to play a full 60 minutes."

NEXT UP
The Spartans and Eagles play the second game of their weekend series Saturday at 7 p.m. (PT) at the EWU Recreation Complex.

-TW-