VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds men's hockey team finished off the first half of its season on a winning note, defeating the Calgary Dinos 4-2 on Saturday night to split the weekend series between the two squads.
 
The T-Birds jumped out to a 3-0 lead after 40 minutes, and then staved off a Dinos comeback attempt in the third.
 
UBC improved to 8-5-3 on the season with the win, while Calgary dropped to 5-8-3.
 
The Thunderbirds got on the board first late in the opening frame. With the Dinos a man short, Nick Buonassisi (Coquitlam, B.C.) hit Austin Vetterl (Surrey, B.C.) with a centering pass and he beat the screened Dinos goaltender, Steven Stanford, with a wrist shot low glove side to give UBC a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.
 
The visitors extended their lead early in the second when Dillon Wagner Duffield, Alta.) tipped Buonassisi's shot into the net to make it 2-0. The T-Birds picked up another power play marker late in the second as Vetterl's cross-ice pass set up Anthony Bardaro (Delta, B.C.) who fired a slap shot past Stanford to put his team up 3-0 going into the final frame. 
 
The Dinos answered back in the third period when Danny Gayle buried a rebound off of Chris Collins' shot just past the midway point in the period. 
 
Collins and Gayle combined for another goal to put the Dinos within one as Collins roofed a backhand shot off a pass from Gayle from behind the net.
 
UBC got another one with 4:22 remaining when David Robinson (Vernon, B.C.) found the back of the net on a pass from Joel Hamilton (Cochrane, Alta.), to give the T-Birds a 4-2 victory.
 
The T-Birds will be back in Calgary when league play resumes in the new year to take on Mt. Royal January 8-9.    

- with files from Calgary Sports Information