Griffins score five unanswered goals to double up on Portage

Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON - It was the type of game where frustration could have been the Griffins men's hockey team's undoing.

They were badly outshooting the visiting Portage College Voyageurs but found themselves trailing 3-1 on the scoresheet.

Instead, they just kept plugging away, scoring five unanswered goals to net a 6-3 win on Friday night at the Downtown Community Arena.

Four of those came in a third-period explosion where the puck was mainly in Portage's end as MacEwan outshot them 21-2 to finish with a 45-12 advantage for the game.

"We felt (our play) was pretty good the whole night and we just weren't getting rewarded until the third," said head coach Bram Stephen, whose team improved to 9-3-1, three points shy of NAIT for the ACAC lead with a game in hand.

"It was good to see we were able to score in bunches. It's something we've been talking about lots is building off of a goal. So that was good to see. We got contributions from the different lines, so that was nice as well."

Jacob Schofield finished with a goal and two assists for the Griffins, while Dallas Smith scored twice, and Blake Grainger, Austin Yaremchuk and Stefan Danielson also had two-point nights. Michael Roberts and Ryan Baskerville also notched tallies in a true team offensive effort.

It would have been easy for MacEwan to get frustrated after Portage went up 3-1 in the first minute of the second period on a goal by Eli Jarvis. But they didn't.

"That was the challenge," said Stephen. "It could have been 4-0 after the first period the way it was going.

"A lot of credit to our players. They kept with it. We didn't change anything in our game plan. We liked our game plan, we liked the way the players were executing it. They just stuck with it and kept coming wave after wave. So it was good to get rewarded later.

"That's an important demonstration when you have a night like that," he added. "Guys just stuck with it and kept pounding the rock. Eventually, it will break. So that was good."

Chris Wray stopped nine of 12 in the MacEwan net, while Billy Clarke made 39 saves for the Voyageurs.

Ryan Groom and Jaret Smith also scored for Portage, which falls to 4-8-0 on the campaign.

The teams will meet again on Saturday night in Lac La Biche.