LANGLEY, B.C. – The T-Birds' first road tilt of the Canada West season certainly provided highlights, as UBC and Trinity Western combined for 11 goals in a game that featured overtime, a hat trick, and even a goalie assist.
In fact, two of those points were directly connected to each other, coming late in the first period when Cole Schwebius fired the puck down the ice to Jake Wright on a UBC power play, allowing the forward to enter the zone and rip a wrister past Raphael Audet to make it 2-0 for the 'Birds. That came after Brayden Schuurman opened the scoring just a few minutes in.
As would be the case for the entire night, however, the Spartans refused to let the Thunderbirds get some real breathing room. Danylo Korzhyletskyi cut the lead in half late in the period, allowing his team to enter the second down by just a single goal.
The first five minutes of the middle frame featured three goals, two of them from Wright who completed the first hat trick of his UBC career. He finished it off by tipping in a Nathan Sullivan point shot, a series of goals only interrupted by TWU's Riley Joslin getting one of his own in the midst of Wright's tallies.
After scoring five times in the opening 25 minutes, things then slowed down a bit for the T-Birds offensively, but ramped up for the Spartans. Mikhailo Simchuk got another goal back for the hosts before the second was up, and his team proceeded to score twice more in just 14 seconds early in the third to turn a one-goal deficit into a one-goal lead. Simchuk got his second of the night for the go-ahead goal, right after Nicco Camazzola had tied the game.
Trailing for the first time, UBC received an opportunity via a power play midway through the third. With less than 30 seconds to go in the man advantage, Josh Williams hit Ty Thorpe right on the tape in front of the net, and the Winnipeg native buried it to tie the game at 5-5.
Playing some three-on-three for the first time this season, it was the 'Birds who carried most of the play. Things unravelled entirely for the Spartans when they tried to sneak a full change with the puck in the UBC zone, whereupon Austin Fraser picked his head up and fired the puck ahead to a wide-open Zeke Nicholson, who raced in on goal and snuck it past Audet.
The two squads will be right back at it tomorrow, as the action shifts to Father David Bauer Arena with the T-Birds hosting the Spartans at 3:00 p.m. (PT) in the rematch.
