EDMONTON – Jakin Smallwood scored a hat-trick to lead the Alberta Golden Bears to a 7-2 victory over the Trinity Western Friday night at the Clare Drake Arena. 

TWU's Aidan Steinke and Josh Borynec tallied for the visiting Spartans, but it was Alberta's night as they outshot the Spartans 50-33 on their way to the five-goal win. 

TWU netminder Leon Sommer had 43 saves, while Ethan Kruger stopped 32 shots for the Bears.

Beyond Smallwood, Justin Hall added two goals for Alberta, while Eric Florchuk and Daneel Lategan added singles. 

The Spartans drop to an overall record of 2-14-1. Alberta is now 13-4-2.

AS IT HAPPENED
It was a quiet first period, featuring some impressive penalty kills from both sides, until Steinke potted home a backhand on a puck that scooted out from behind the net off of a referee's skate for his third of the year. The Spartans would maintain a 1-0 advantage through the end of the period, with netminder Sommer stopping all 11 shots he faced.

The second was all Bears from the jump, maintaining offensive zone pressure for the vast majority of the period. This led to three Alberta goals, with Lategan, Smallwood, and Hall getting on the board with their fifth, seventh, and sixth of the season respectively. The last goal, was a great piece of play from Hall and Mason Ward on a 2-on-1 that saw a Ward saucer pass find Hall's tape who promptly roofed it for a two-goal lead that the Bears would take into the intermission. Alberta outshot Trinity Western by a 25-12 margin in the period.

The Bears did not wait long in the third to score again, as five minutes in, Smallwood buried his second of the game on a beautiful tic-tac-toe setup involving linemates Josh Prokop and Florchuk. Hall also potted his second of the game minutes later on the power play, giving Alberta a 5-1 lead halfway through the period. The Spartans added one more in the frame courtesy of Borynec, but that was quickly nullified by Florchuk and Smallwood goals that ended the night with a final score of 7-2.
 
QUOTABLE
Ben Walter – Head Coach
"I was very happy with our first period. We showed that we can compete with the top teams in this league when we play the way we can. Unfortunately, we didn't follow it up in the second and third periods and Alberta took the game over. We need to continue to work on being able to play our game for a full 60 minutes. Aidan Steinke was a bright spot for us tonight with a goal and some big blocked shots on the penalty kill."

NOTABLE
•    TWU is still looking for their first-ever win against the Bears, as the Spartans are 0-7 all-time against Alberta.

NEXT UP
Game two of the series with Alberta will get underway Saturday at 7 p.m. (MT).

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 and disc golf. 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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