A strong first period was not enough as the Trinity Western Spartans dropped their sixth straight hockey game, falling to 5-7-0 on the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League season.
The Spartans lost 7-1 to the SFU Clan on Nov. 23 at the Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby. The victory improved the Clan to 7-1-0.
"We skated with them for the first period but we had a few penalties in the second period and SFU capitalized," said Spartans coach Barret Kropf.
"We are continuing to battle through a cluster of injuries and it's hard to get any sort of consistency with our lines and our match-ups when we're so banged up.
"We had our scoring chances on power plays but at the end of the day, we obviously didn't come away with the win. We have to find a way to be better and keep chipping away."
SFU's Yan Kalashnikov opened the scoring and the Spartans' Joey Walter netted the equalizer, but Josh McKissock struck on a penalty shot for a 2-1 Clan lead after one period.
SFU broke the game open in the middle period with three goals, including a pair 25 seconds apart.
Aaron Enns, Jono Ceci and Colton Schock had the goals.
Ceci and Mike Ball added third period goals for the 7-1 final.
"We're trying to find measurable things we can build on and I thought in the third period, we tried to outhit and outshoot them and create some turnovers and I think we accomplished that and had a solid period to build on," Kropf said.
SFU finished with a 32-20 advantage in shots.
Harry Fredeman played the first two periods while Silas Matthys came on in relief in the third.
The Spartans close out the first half of the schedule with a home game on Nov. 28 at the Langley Events Centre against SFU.