The Trinity Western Spartans fell behind by a pair of goals early on and never recovered in dropping their third straight game.
The Spartans lost 4-1 to the Simon Fraser Clan on Feb. 21 at Burnaby’s Bill Copeland Sports Centre.
“I think overall, we just didn’t capitalize on our scoring chances like we have in the past,” said Spartans coach Barret Kropf.
“We missed the net on four or five wide open chances and just didn’t bear down.”
“When you’re not taking advantage of those opportunities, the puck often seems to end up in the back of your own net,” he added.
“That happened a couple of times tonight. But full credit to SFU. They came out and had a balanced approach to their game.”
The loss dropped the Spartans to 16-5-0-2 as they head into the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League regular season finale on Friday (Feb. 27) against the Victoria Vikes. The game will be played at the Langley Sportsplex.
Trinity Western already has top spot locked up.
SFU’s Matthew Luongo and Trent Murdoch scored in the first six minutes before Blair Murphy got one back for the Spartans midway through the first.
“They got out to a quick start and had us on our heels for the first 10 minutes, but I thought we battled back well to finish the first period strong,” Kropf said.
But that would be the only puck the Spartans got past SFU goalie Jordan Liem who finished with 28 saves.
Jono Ceci and Graham Smerek would tally in the second and third periods, respectively, to complete the scoring.
Aaron Oakley made 34 saves for the Spartans.
