EDMONTON, Alberta – The Trinity Western Spartans used a 23-3 run to start the game and never looked back as the Spartans defeated the MacEwan Griffins 78-64 Friday night at the David Atkinson Gymnasium in Edmonton, Alta. The win improves the Spartans to 3-1 in preseason play, while the loss drops the Griffins to 0-3.

The Spartans led 25-10 at the end of the first quarter, and 40-29 at the half. TWU expanded their lead to 16 points, 58-42 at the end of the third quarter before settling for the 14-point win.

Third-year guard David Mutabazi (Delta, B.C.) with 17 points, third-year centre Connor Platz (Langley, B.C.) with 14 points, and fourth-year guard Vlad Mihaila (Surrey, B.C.) with 13 points led the Spartans, while Milan Jaksic with 17 points led the Griffins.

Last week TWU defeated UBC Okanagan 74-61, and Mount Royal 105-72 to finish the Okanagan Heat tournament.

QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Trevor Pridie
"A good start for us tonight. We came out of the gate really locked in and got out to a big lead early. Credit MacEwan for fighting back into the game but Connor and David were fantastic and helped us put them away. Nice to be on a bit of a winning streak and starting to play the tempo and style of basketball that is TWU basketball. Big test tomorrow against a very good Alberta team."

UP NEXT
The Spartans will continue the MacEwan tournament tomorrow afternoon with a game against the Alberta Golden Bears at 3 p.m. (MT). TWU opens up Canada West conference play on November 3-4 in Kamloops, B.C. against the Thompson Rivers WolfPack. Game time is at 7:30 p.m. (PT) on both nights and 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 14 U SPORTS team championships and 34 Canada West team championships.
 
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