LANGLEY, British Columbia – The Trinity Western Spartans matched the No. 1 UBC Thunderbirds for the first part of the contest, but four unanswered goals by the Thunderbirds gave UBC the 6-1 victory over the Spartans Friday night at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre in Vancouver, B.C. The loss drops the Spartans to 3-14-1-0, while the win improves the top-ranked Thunderbirds to 15-1-1-1.
 
Scoring for the Spartans was rookie forward James Swan (Ville Saint-Laurent, QC).
 
Scoring for the Thunderbirds were Jake Lee with two goals, Scott Atkinson, Ty Thorpe, Reilley Kotai, and Kayden Sadhra-Kang.
 
Trinity Western fourth-year goalie Raphael Audet (Rimouski, QC) made 44 saves in the Spartans' loss. UBC's Cole Schwebius made 17 saves in the Thunderbirds' win.
 
UP NEXT
The Spartans will now take a break for Christmas. TWU's next games are on the road against the MacEwan Griffins. The games at the Downtown Community Arena in Edmonton, Alta are scheduled for 7 p.m. (MT) and 3 p.m. (MT) and can be seen live on Canada West TV.
 
AS IT HAPPENED
The Spartans had an early four-minute power play, but were unable to get the opening goal. After killing off the penalty the Thunderbirds were finally able to beat Audet, who had made three quality stops, when Atkinson deflected a shot from Sasha Mutala to put UBC up 1-0 at 12:28. UBC followed up quickly when Lee put a shot under the top left corner of the net to put the Thunderbirds up 2-0 just 35 seconds later at 13:03. UBC outshot TWU 19-4 in the opening period.

Trinity Western cut the UBC lead in half just 1:14 into the second period. From the top of the right circle, the Spartans' second-year forward Matteo Lamoureux (Montreal, QC) sent a hard shot towards the lower left side of the Thunderbirds' net. Schwebius made the right pad save, but the rebound went straight to a charging Swan who put the puck into the open side of the net to make in 2-1 for the Thunderbirds. After killing a delay of game penalty, UBC regained the two-goal lead when, on an odd-man rush, Thorpe put in a rebound from a Cyle McNabb shot to put UBC up 3-1 at 6:29. The Thunderbirds struck again 85 seconds later when Kotai deflected a shot by UBC's Jake Lee to put the Thunderbirds up 4-1 at 7:54. UBC's Lee got his second of the game with a shot from the left dot to put UBC up 5-1 at 17:17. UBC again had the advantage in shots on goal at 18-10.

UBC's Sadhra-Kang finished off the scoring with a solo effort coming in from the blue line to find the far side of the net, for his fourth point of the night, to put the Thunderbirds up 6-1 at 16:14, and give UBC the win.

NOTABLE

• The Thunderbirds outshot the Spartans 50-18.
• TWU was 0-6 on the power play, while UBC finished 0-2.
• The Spartans are currently 1-34 lifetime against the UBC Thunderbirds. TWU is 0-3 against UBC this season in conference play.
• Last night, the Spartans lost 4-2 to the Thunderbirds
• Earlier this season, the Spartans lost 6-2 and 4-3 in the home-and-home series the second week of October.
• TWU's second-year forward Artem Hrabovetskyi (Kyiv, Ukraine) was named the Canada West Biosteel men's hockey player of the week after a five-point weekend in the Spartans' sweep of the Alberta Golden Bears.

 
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 11 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes as in the NAIA in track and field and cross country and as an independent team in men's rugby and women's and men's disc golf. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 14 U SPORTS team championships and 33 Canada West team championships.

About Trinity Western University
Recognized for quality, TWU has received seven consecutive A+ rankings for Quality of Teaching and Learning, holds three Canada Research Chairs, and wins national championships in U SPORTS. More importantly, lives are changed at TWU through its whole-person, Christ-centred approach to education. With a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and adult degree-completion programs, TWU equips leaders of character and competence to make a positive impact in the lives of others.  
 
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