COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Colorado College jumped out to a two-goal lead in the first period and never looked back on its way to a 4-1 victory over Trinity Western University Saturday night at the Broadmoor World Arena.
Trailing 3-0 in the third period, TWU's Evan Last (Surrey, B.C.) scored on the powerplay to spark a Spartans surge, but a late goal from the home side snuffed out any hopes of a comeback.
TWU starting goalie Lucas Mills (Burnaby, B.C.) gave up two goals on 22 shots before giving way to first-year Isaac Labelle (Saskatoon) midway through the second period. Labelle went on to stop 22 of the 24 shots he faced.
The Spartans Dylan Cusmano (Abbotsford, B.C.) and Logan Casavant (Melfort, B.C.) picked up the helpers on Last's goal.
The Tigers got two goals from Alex Berardinelli and one each from Chris Wilkie and Erik Middendorf.
Wilkie put the Tigers on the board at the 9:03 mark with a snipe from the right circle that beat TWU's Mills. Freshman Connor Mayer and senior Nick Halloran assisted on the play.
The Tigers expanded their lead just two minutes later when Berardinelli scored on a give-and-go pass from junior Christiano Versich and the Tigers led 2-0 after 20 minutes. Graduate transfer Ryan Ruck started the game in goal and stopped all 10 shots he faced.
Freshman Matt Vernon took over in the net at the beginning of the second period and stopped all eight shots he saw, including a partial breakaway by the Spartans Last. Berardinelli notched his second of the contest with 4:17 remaining in the middle frame when he and Versich teamed up again, along with junior Jack Gates, to make it 3-0.
The Tigers survived a five-minute major interference call to junior McKay Flanagan with five seconds left in the second period, but Last found the net at the 9:12 mark of the third with a powerplay goal against junior Jon Flakne, who played the final 20 minutes and made six saves.
Middendorf took a feed from fellow sophomore Bailey Conger and beat TWU's LaBelle with less than four minutes remaining for the game's final goal. May collected his second helper of the game on the play.
QUOTABLE
TWU Coach Barret Kropf
"I thought there was probably 30 minutes – not consecutively – where we have lots of improving to do and then I thought there were 30 minutes where we could maybe say we took the play to them a bit. I thought for the most part, when we had the energy to get going, we carried the play. I told the boys that while it's a 4-1 loss, it was a 3-1 game in the third period and we were pressing and we almost scored. Instead, they poked it out past our pinching defenceman and scored a goal of their own to seal the game. It could have been 3-2 but it ended up being 4-1.
"It's a great experience to come down and play a Division I program. Mike Haviland has a great group of kids here and they work hard. For our guys to match up with them, it gives us a lot of confidence going into tomorrow and into our season."
NOTABLE
• The Tigers outshot Trinity Western 44-25
• TWU was 1 for 3 on the powerplay, while the Tigers were 0 for 3
• The Spartans are now 1-6 all-time against NCAA opponents.
• Saturday's game was played in front of a crowd of 2,769
NEXT UP
The Spartans will play Air Force Sunday at 5 p.m. (MT) at the Cadet Ice Arena.
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 11 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL) in men's hockey and as an independent team in men's rugby. The men's and women's hockey programs will begin playing in Canada West and U SPORTS in 2020-21. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 27 Canada West team championships and two BCIHL championships.
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