A loss on the season鈥檚 final day kept the Trinity Western Spartans from capturing the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League title.
The Spartans closed the regular season with a pair of road games in Burnaby against the SFU Clan and after TWU won 3-1 on Friday, they needed a regulation win to secure top spot.
The Clan had other plans, defeating the Spartans by that same 3-1 the night night score to wrap up first place heading into the BCIHL semifinals.
Both games were at the Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby.
SFU finished in first place at 18-4-0-2, four points ahead of TWU鈥檚 16-6-0-2 record.
"Full credit to Simon Fraser, they came out with a great performance tonight. They played hard for 60 minutes. We were right there with them, but injuries have taken their toll, and our guys played with such courage tonight. I'm super proud of them," said TWU head coach Barret Kropf.
"We are not hanging our head tonight, it is a stepping-stone to the playoffs and hopefully we can put this in the learning bank and take some withdrawals from it as we head into the playoffs."
Kaleb Denham had a hat trick in the victory while Stefan Gonzales had the lone goal in the loss.
Denham was playing his first game as a forward as the team dealt with a rash of injuries.
"We are still a banged up unit. We still have many guys that are giving us more then we could ever ask from them. Guys are playing above and beyond what we thought that they could give us in terms of their capacity,鈥� Kropf said.
鈥淪o it just sort of caught up to us tonight in terms of just not having enough gas in the tank to push through."
The Spartans will host third-place Selkirk Saints in a best-of-three semifinal series at the George Preston Recreation Centre.
Game one is Thursday (March 9) and game two is Friday with a 7 p.m. puck drop for both.
