SPARTANS EARN CRITICAL WIN OVER HEAT

LANGLEY, British Columbia – Playing in his first Canada West league contest in over a year, Dominic Reinold (Wesseling, Germany) made his presence felt less than four minutes into the game as he put the Spartans on the board early and sparked TWU to a 2-1 win over UBC Okanagan Friday at Rogers Field.

After missing all but two regular season games last year and the first four games of this year due to injury, Reinold was eager to get back into form and in his early tally proved his vast value to the Spartans side.

Shortly after halftime TWU's Vito Poletto (Calgary) doubled the Spartans lead when he found the back of the net in the 47th minute. That proved to be the winning goal.

The Heat pushed back in the latter stages of the second half and an Andrew Stevenson goal pulled UBCO within one, but the visitors were unable to find the equaliser. Stevenson's goal came in the 90th minute and the Heat had possession through much of the three-minute stoppage time, but the Spartans held on to pick up their second win of the season.

"I'm pleased with the victory…and we'll take it and be thankful for it and move on," said Spartans coach Pat Rohla. "Getting that first goal (was huge). Getting Jordan Whitehead and Dom in the squad (was critical). Those are big players for us. I thought everyone who came into the game did an excellent job. Can we improve? Yup. But I'm very pleased with our performance, particularly in the second half."

The win saw TWU turns the tables on a UBCO side that had knocked off the Spartans 2-1 in their last meeting two weeks ago in Kelowna, B.C.

TWU improves to 2-2-1 on the year while UBCO falls to 3-4.

TWU goalie Evan Lowther (Surrey, B.C.) stopped three of the four shots he faced while UBCO netminder Christopher Cuthill was good on three of the five shots the Spartans sent his way.

The Spartans return to action Saturday when they host Thompson Rivers at 7 p.m. while UBCO will now travel to play Fraser Valley, also on Saturday night.

Coming off a bye week, the Spartans were bolstered by some veteran help as both Reinold and Jordan Whitehead (Surrey, B.C.) returned to the starting lineup after extensive time shelved by injuries. While TWU was forced to play without captain Brayden Gant (Maple Ridge, B.C.), who had to sit out a game after getting two yellow cards, and thus a red card, in the Spartans last game.

Meanwhile, UBCO was looking to bounce back after a pair of losses last weekend against Victoria and UBC.

Reinold set the tone for the game early as he got TWU on the board and the Spartans did well to keep the Heat largely in check.

Poletto had a good chance to make it 2-0 in the 20th minute with a rip from 18 yards out, but Cuthill made a slick kick save to stymie the opportunity.

UBCO had its best chance of the opening 45 minutes just before the halftime whistle when Enzo Paal curled a shot on target that forced Lowther to dive to his left to make the save.

Early in the second half, Poletto made it a two-goal game and, for much of the second half, it looked like that might be the game's final goal.

But with UBCO pressing, Stevenson scored, which made for an exciting final few minutes.

Game Notes: UBCO was whistled for 15 fouls compared to eight for TWU…Paal was the only player to be shown a yellow card.