LANGLEY, B.C. – A valiant effort from Trinity Western resulted in Canada West's first seed team, the Alberta Golden Bears, defeating the Spartans 6-3 at the George Preston Recreation Centre on Friday night.
 
The Spartans (2-15-0) kept Friday's game close for a significant stretch, but the Golden Bears (13-3-1) were able to hold off the surging home side.
 
TWU's goals were scored by Joshua Bruce (Surrey, B.C.), Hayden Guilderson (Chilliwack, B.C.), and Kylor Wall (Edmonton), who joined Travis Verveda (Alix, Alta.) as the two Spartans who pulled off multi-point performances.
 
Talor Joseph (Sherwood Park, Alta.) performed well on his busiest night of the season. The senior goaltender stopped an astounding 59 shots on the 65 he faced on Friday.
 
AS IT HAPPENED
It only took the Golden Bears 2:13 to open Friday's scoring courtesy of Noah Philp's power play marker. Alberta's Josh Prokop followed soon after to bring the Golden Bears to a 2-0 lead. Only one minute after Prokop's goal was scored to put Alberta up by two, Joshua Bruce shocked the visiting side, potting an even-strength goal to bring the Spartans within one. To cap off a wild stretch of play, Eric Florchuk potted his eighth goal of the season, marking the third goal scored in a 2:53 span of time. The first period ended at a 3-1 advantage for Alberta.
 
Hayden Guilderson snatched up a breakaway attempt, moving to his backhand to beat Alberta goaltender Nick Schneider to bring the game back to a one-goal differential. With Noah Volcan stealing another goal for the Golden Bears near the end of the second period, Kylor Wall answered back with a power-play slapshot to end the period at 4-3.
 
With the Spartans surging, Alberta put their foot on the gas in the third, potting two more goals to seal the deal at 6-3.
 
NOTABLE

• Travis Verveda currently leads the Spartans with 10 points. This is an impressive feat for the third-year defenseman, who is currently averaging a solid rate of 0.6 points-per-game from the blueline. Verveda has six points in his last five games.

 
QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Barret Kropf
"It is a season-long learning curve for our guys to figure out what it takes to play at this level. The most unfortunate thing is that there are only 20 games in the season, because we're at that point where we know what it takes to compete at this level. It takes everything to compete at this level. Our goaltending, power-play, penalty kill, everything. There wasn't a single guy who took a shift off tonight, and that was something that we struggled with at the start of the season.
 
"Even though we lost, we still held the number one team to a one-goal margin for a sizable part of the game.
 
"A lot of guys haven't played enough hockey in the past two years. I think we're starting to play as a unit by blocking shots and taking penalties. We didn't have that mentality at the beginning of the season.
 
"The biggest difference throughout the season has been an overall belief in each other. I wish there was more time in this season to keep building on that."

UP NEXT
The Spartans will rematch the Golden Bears at the Langley Events Centre on Saturday (7 p.m., PT).
 
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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