You'd think a 5-0 lead is pretty safe.

Not necessarily, as the Trinity Western University men's hockey team found out Friday at the Langley Events Centre.

The Spartans jumped out to a five-goal lead midway through the second period but then had to hang on the rest of the way to earn a 6-4 win over Thompson Rivers.

It was a scoring-in-bunches kind of evening for the Spartans (2-10-0-1) as they tallied their first two goals in the first 1: 01 of the contest and then notched three in just 1: 11 during the second period, the latter trio giving TWU a five-goal advantage.

Thompson Rivers (4-8-0-1) rallied in the second half of the middle stanza, to make it 5-3 going into the third period.

Then, in the final frame, after a couple of near misses, the WolfPack got to within one goal when Travis Herlein scored with 2: 54 left. But that was as close as the visitors would get.

A frenetic final three minutes, largely played in TWU territory, came to an end when Spartans' defenceman Tyler Miller scored an empty-netter on a 185-foot shot to seal the win.

The Spartans had five different goal-scorers on the night with Jamey Kreller, Ryan Valdes, Mattias Schmitt, Tristano Falbo, Matt Ius and Miller getting in on the action. Nathan Wiebe had three assists and Brad Bakken had two helpers. Goalie Tim Zwiers earned his first win of the season, stopping 37 of the 41 shots he faced.

Thompson Rivers' Joshua MacDonald led the way for the WolfPack as he scored his team's first two goals.

Herlein and Duncan Schulz each had one goal and two assists while Curtis Tonello had two assists in a losing effort.

"The big thing is we're getting some scoring," said Spartans coach Dwayne Lowdermilk, following the win. "We brought in some guys to bang and crash and score, and that's exactly what we saw tonight. We put pucks to the net and just found a way to score and no matter how the goals look, they all count.

"We're now in the hunt again. We're working at and every time we get an effort like this we're going to start stepping up the ladder."

. . .

The Spartans are back in action this weekend when they travel to play Selkirk Friday and Eastern Washington Saturday.