LANGLEY, British Columbia – In the their first ever meeting the Trinity Western Spartans defeated the Manitoba Bisons 7-5 in Canada West men's hockey action Saturday evening at the Wayne Fleming Arena in Winnipeg, Man. The win improves the Spartans to 2-13, while the loss drops the Bisons to 5-9.
 
The Bisons jumped out to an early 2-0 lead after goals from Carter Doerksen and Tony Apetagon in the first period. However, the Spartans offence exploded in the second period with five unanswered goals when Joshua Bruce at 1:42, Jamieson Ree at 5:25, Travis Verveda at 9:23, Logan Casavant at 9:47 and Michael Spafford at 19:32.Josh Bruce each scored for Trinity Western.

Manitoba scored three unanswered goals of their own in the third to narrow the Trinity Western lead to 6-5. But in the end, the five unanswered goals in the second proved to be the difference as TWU added an empty net goal to secure a 7-5 victory.

AS IT HAPPENED
Manitoba's Doerksen scored his first goal of the season to open the scoring. Duncan Pierce won the face-off straight back to Doerksen who put his shot on net, beating Spartans goalie Talor Joseph five-hole to give the hosts the 1-0 lead at 8:28 of the opening period.

Next it was Apetagon who cashed in. At 15:58 of the first, Hayden Ostir's slot shot took a wild bounce into the air, landing in the goal crease behind Joseph. Apetagon was positioned nicely to take advantage of the favourable bounce, making it 2-0 for Manitoba with his fourth goal of the season.

The momentum of the game flipped on the Bisons when they gave up the five goals in the second period. Combined with second-year defenceman Liam Schioler being ejected for crosschecking, Manitoba struggled to find offence in the middle frame.

The third period began with a steady parade to the penalty box for both teams. With Manitoba on the power play, Chase Hartje mishandled a pass at the offensive blue line giving Spartans forward Josh Borynec a breakaway opportunity. Borynec made no mistake and beat Link for the shorthanded goal, making it 6-2 for the visitors.

The Bisons began to mount their comeback with the two goals from Veloso and one from Skoleski to pull back to within one of the Spartans. The Herd believed for a moment they had tied the game with 30 seconds left when Jameson put the puck in the net but the referees called the Bisons for a too-many-men penalty. Trinity Western added an empty net goal to make the final score 7-5.

NOTABLE

• Stars of the Game: TWU Logan Casavant one goal and one assist, MB Colton Veloso two goals and Drake Lindsay two assists.
• Manitoba out shot Trinity Western 35-32.
• TWU was 3/5 on the power play, while Manitoba was 2/4.
• The seven goals is the most TWU has scored in a CW conference match. TWU previously scored six goals in a 6-4 win over MacEwan on November 27 in Edmonton.

 
QUOTABLE
Barret Kropf - TWU Head Coach
"They're a really desperate team trying to make their way into the playoffs. They got out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, but it was actually a really good first period for us and they just got some seeing eye pucks through. In the second we scored five goals and had a ton of confidence. 

"In the third period, we had a bit of a pause in our step and Manitoba rolled up their sleeves and came at us for 10 minutes and got it to within one. We were able to calm things down and work our way through the last seven minutes. It was a real gritty win that way, as we closed out the game and blocked shots and killed some penalties. I'm pretty proud of our work tonight. 

"We need to now rest up and look to play a bit more of a spoiler role tomorrow in an early afternoon game." 

Captain Spencer Gerth
"We felt good about our start tonight despite giving up those two goals. I think we showed a lot of character in the way we were able to come out and score those five unanswered goals."
 
UP NEXT
Both teams will be back at Wayne Fleming Arena tomorrow at 1 p.m. to finish off the two-game weekend set. The game can be seen live on Canadawest.tv.

About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men's rugby. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 29 Canada West team championships.
 
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