VANCOUVER - Despite leading 2-0 after one period on Saturday, the UBC Thunderbirds fell victim to the sweep in Calgary this weekend, as the Dinos charged back on home ice to beat the 'Birds 9-5 to stay perfect at 4-0-0 on the year.
UBC jumped out in front with an unassisted goal from
Greg Fraser at the mid point of the first, and doubled the lead before the end of the frame on a Scott McDonald tally, assisted by
Neil Manning and
Kevin Smith.
Steven Stanford stopped all 10 shots he faced in the first period to put UBC in a good spot heading into the intermission.
But things changed in a hurry once the second period started up. The Dinos quickly chased Stanford from the game, scoring four times in eight shots against him in the frame before
Matt Hewitt took over between the pipes. He fared no better, surrendering another two goals in five more second-period shots to give Calgary a 6-2 lead through two periods.
The 'Birds showed some fight in the third, scoring two goals in the first five minutes of the period to make it a game again. Fraser netted his second of the game less than two minutes in, assisted by
Jason Yee, and
Nick Buonassisi. Then Buonassisi got his name in the goals column just over two minutes later to make it a 6-4 game.
But that only reignited the Dinos scoring machine. Calgary scored another three goals in a stretch of just over three and a half minutes around the middle of the third period to put the game well out of reach, securing the two-game sweep of UBC and a 4-0-0 start to their conference season after also sweeping Regina last week.
The 'Birds got one more goal from rookie
Luke Lockhart, who netted his first CIS goal around the 11-minute mark of the third, with assists to
Nate Fleming and
Ben Schmidt.Â
There weren't many penalties on Saturday, but both teams took advantage of the few opporunities they got with the extra man. UBC was 1-for-2 on the power play and the Dinos went 2-for-2 after both squads' special teams were blanked in the series opener.
Chris Collins recorded a hat trick with three of the six second-period goals for the Dinos. He leads the team with five goals on the year. Calgary also got goals from Spencer Edwards, Ryan Harrison, Max Ross, Cory Pritz, Brett Bartman and Taylor Stefishen.
Jacob DeSerres made 24 saves to get his second win for the Dinos. Stanford stopped 14 of the 18 shots he faced, and Hewitt saved eight of 13 in relief.
UBC falls to 0-2-0 to start the conference season, but they have a good chance to rebound from that with eight of their next 12 games coming on home ice. They start that stretch with a two-game series against the Regina Cougars next weekend at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Game one is on Friday, October 18 at 7 p.m., and game two is on Saturday also at 7 p.m.
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