Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
LANGLEY, B.C. – With inconsistencies in their game plaguing them, the MacEwan Griffins men's hockey team followed up a massive overtime win over UBC last weekend with a clunker six days later.
They were outworked and outplayed by the previously-winless Trinity Western Spartans and suffered a humbling 5-2 defeat on Friday night.
"Definitely disappointing," said interim head coach Zack Dailey. "I feel if we bring a consistent effort ,we have a chance to win every night. Unfortunately, we didn't have that tonight.
"We're not at liberty where we can play for a half a game and be successful. It's a learning lesson. We'll try to learn, move on and be better tomorrow."
The Spartans improved to 1-7-1 on the Canada West season, while the Griffins fell to 4-5-0.
"I just thought we got outworked tonight," said Dailey. "They deserved to win. They were willing to do the little things it took, and they definitely were more hungry than we were. They simply outplayed us tonight."
Tanner Hopps scored twice to pace the Spartans, while Jordan Bogress, Luke Spadafora and Michael Spafford added tallies.
Both Neithan Salame and Kole Gable produced a goal and an assist.
If there was a positive, the Griffins outshot the Spartans 37-25 and generated a lot of quality chances on the power-play, even if none of them went in on seven chances.
"I thought our powerplay actually did a good job of creating pressure," said Dailey. "We didn't score, but I thought we had a lot of good looks and good chances, which is something positive we can build off of."
The teams will meet again on Saturday (3:15 p.m. MT, Canada West TV), where the Griffins will be looking to salvage a weekend split and get back to .500.