The University of British Columbia Athletics

VANCOUVER - The No. 1team in the nation came out firing against the UBC Thunderbirds as the Alberta Golden Bears took the first game of the best-of-three Canada West semifinal series by a 5-1 margin on Friday evening. Kurtis Mucha made 17 saves behind a strong offensive effort from Alberta as four different Golden Bears had tallies on Friday while Nate Fleming scored the lone goal for the Thunderbirds.

BOX SCORE

Despite two weeks off since it's last meaningful game, Alberta showed no signs of rust peppering Steven Stanford and outshooting the visiting UBC Thunderbirds by a 20-3 margin in the first, an indication of its dominant play. Alberta's Sean Ringrose, Johnny Lazo and Brett Ferguson, had 14-game, 10-game, and 7-game point streaks, respectively, heading into this weekend's matchup, and continued their dominance in the first by extending those streaks. The top line showed good chemistry and took advantage of the Thunderbirds flat-footed play in the first forcing Stanford to make a number of key saves.
 
To open the scoring, Jordan Hickmott was the recipient of a juicy rebound after some hard fore-checking by the Alberta forwards, leaving the third-year forward with an easy back-door goal into the empty net at 1:05 of the first period.
 
With the shots 10-1 in favour of Alberta through the opening seven minutes, UBC got a break with its first power play opportunity of the game, putting its threatening power play to work after 7 of the team's 13 goals in the first round were scored on the man-advantage. Alberta prevented any sort of set-up by the Thunderbirds and the only shot went to Alberta shorthanded.
 
At 15:50 of the first, Lazo unleashed a rocket that beat Stanford upstairs off feeds from Torrie Dyck and Ringrose, January's WHL Graduate of the Month.
 
UBC wasn't fortunate enough to escape the period with only a two-goal deficit, as Ferguson punished the Thunderbirds with 13 seconds remaining in the period deflecting a Jesse Craige shot through Stanford's five-hole. Entering the first intermission in a three-goal hole proved to be an uphill battle for UBC with two periods to go.
 
Midway through the second, Matt Wray would head to the sin-bin for boarding as the nation's top-ranked power play during the regular season went to work. UBC and its strong penalty kill, shutting out the Huskies on every attempt last weekend, held strong led by Stanford who made a number of absolute robberies from close-range.
 
Shortly thereafter, putting a sharp-angle shot glove-side on Stanford was Alberta's Dyck, who scored the lone goal of the second period to increase the home team's advantage to four, en route to outshooting UBC by a 14-2 margin in the second period, and 34-5 through two periods.
 
The visiting team wouldn't register a shot until four minutes to play in the second, a testament to the strong defensive play by the Golden Bears. UBC applied some late pressure and were rewarded with a power play forcing Alberta to run around in their end, but failed to muster much in terms of scoring opportunities.
 
UBC's Matt Hewitt came into the game to start the third period giving Stanford some rest ahead of tomorrow's game, and was solid in relief limiting Alberta to just one goal in the third.
 
Fleming broke Mucha's shutout at 9:21 of the third period scoring his league-leading fourth of the playoffs as the veteran forward wired one from the slot on an odd-man rush to make it a 4-1 affair.
 
Alberta's Lazo found twine for the second time Friday evening after banging away in front of the net giving him a three-point night as the first-star of the game beat Hewitt on the man-advantage. UBC's Jason Yee pushed Ringrose into Hewitt who had no chance on the play, while Yee collected a double minor after the play for spearing. Both teams combined for 22-minutes of penalties in the third as the game ended in a 5-1 win for the Alberta Golden Bears who take a 1-0 series lead in the Canada West semi-final.
 
Hewitt finished with 10 saves on 11 shots in relief while Stanford was busy stopping 30 of 34 in two periods of action. UBC has now conceded a staggering 108 shots over its previous two games including being outshot 45-18 on Friday evening.
 
UBC conceded its first goal on the penalty kill as Alberta finished 1-for-5 while the visiting Thunderbirds went 0-for-4 on its power play opportunities.
 
Game two goes tomorrow evening at 5 p.m. PT at Clare Drake Arena where UBC looks to keep its season alive and even up the best-of-three series against the Golden Bears. Action will be streamed live on Canada West TV. A third game, if neccesary, will take place on Sunday at 5 p.m.