Simon Fraser University was upset in the first round of the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League playoffs.
The Clan club hockey team lost 4-1 to No. 3 seed Trinity Western University in the third game of a best-of-three semifinal at the Bill Copeland Sports Centre on Sunday.
The win propelled the TWU Spartans into the playoff final for a first time.
Trinity Western, which finished a distant third to league champ Selkirk College and runner-up SFU in the regular season, took the opening game of the playoff 3-2 with the lone goal in the third period.
SFU bounced back in Game 2, winning that won 2-0 on second-period goals by Nick Sandor and Yan Kalashnikov.Andrew Parent earned the shutout with 29 saves for the Clan.
But it was the goaltending at the other end of the rink that proved the difference in the series.
Trinity Western’s Silas Matthys was named the first star in both games 1 and 3 for the Spartans. The first-year keeper stopped a total of 110 shots in the series, including 40 or more in both team victories.
Another TWU rookie J.P. Villeneuve shouldered most of the scoring load on offence. Villeneuve scored five goals in the series, including a hat trick in Game 3. His game-winning strike came with less than three minutes left in the first quarter.
“Our guys were determined to outwork the talent, and we got a great result because of it,” said Trinity Western head coach Barret Kropf in a school press release.
Trevor Milner scored SFU’s only goal of the game on the power play, one of eight extra-man advantages for the Clan.
In the regular season, TWU foreshadowed what was to come in the playoffs, eking out a 4-3 win in a shootout in last league fixture between both teams.
During the regular season, SFU outscored Trinity Westernn 32-9.
Twitter @ThomasBerridge
