LANGLEY, British Columbia – After a one-goal victory Friday night the Trinity Western Spartans women's hockey team had to settle for a split with the MacEwan Griffins after a disappointing 3-1 loss Saturday afternoon at the Langley Events Centre in Langley, B.C. The loss drops the Spartans to 10-11-3, while the win improves the Griffins to 6-15-1. The Spartans are currently in the final play-off spot, three points ahead of seventh-place Manitoba.  
 
TWU Kate Fawcett (Tottenham, Ont.) made 28 saves in the loss, which drops her record to 6-6-2, while MacEwan's Brianna Sank (Ardrossan, Alta.) made 29 saves to earn the win and improve her record to 6-12-1.
 
MacEwan's Joie Simon (Flin Flon, Man.) took advantage of the TWU give-away in their own end to score an unassisted goal at 3:13 of the opening period to put the Griffins up 1-0 on the Spartans.
 
TWU's Kyra McDonald (Inuik, NT) evened the score at 7:32 of the period when she potted a rebound off of a shot from Reilley Kellner (Langley, B.C.)  to make it 1-1 with 12:28 minutes remaining in the opening period.
 
The Griffins Makenna Schuttler (Sturgeion County, Alta.) got the game-winner at 15:06 of the second period when she found the back of the Spartans' net on a shot from the point.
 
TWU looked like they had tied the game with a power play goal by TWU's McKenzie Mayo (Saskatoon, Sask.)  at 15:50 of the second period. However, the goal was disallowed as a TWU player had a skate in the blue paint.
 
MacEwan's Rebecca Thiessen (Morris, Man.) cemented the Griffins win with the empty net goal at 19:48 of the final period.
 
QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Jean LaForest
"I thought the effort was really good. The execution was bang on. We made adjustments to their forecheck and I thought we broke out of our zone fairly well. I believe that we outplayed them today. We got one goal that was disallowed and I question the call, but that's the way it goes."
 
"My concern is not effort. It was a good 60 minutes of hockey by our team overall. But, you can't win going to the box. So as far as discipline goes, especially in the third period, we would rather be in the offensive zone than killing penalties. The girls did a good job penalty-killing, but it shouldn't get to that, especially at this time of the season. This is like play-offs, so hopefully, they learned something, but it is a tough lesson to learn. I hope that this isn't a game that costs us in terms of making the playoffs, but it could very well. We go into this now with four games to go, with two against Manitoba. Who is the team that we have to beat out and then two big games against UBC. So we will see how it goes, we are the masters of our own fate though."
 
NOTABLE
• Both teams had eight minutes in penalties, with both going 0-4 on the power play.
• TWU finished the afternoon outshooting the Griffins 30-29.
• The Spartans have four Canada West conference games remaining. Two against the seventh-place Manitoba Bisons at home, and a home-and-home series with the UBC Thunderbirds to finish off the regular season.
 
UP NEXT
The Spartans will stay in Langley next weekend and host the Manitoba Bisons for a two-game series with huge play-off implications. Games are on Friday, January 27 and Saturday, January 28. Friday's game is at 7:15 p.m. at the George Preston Arena, while Saturday's game is at 1 p.m. at the Langley Events Centre. Both games 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 13 U SPORTS team championships and 32 Canada West team championships.
 
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