The Trinity Western Spartans hockey team saw its hopes of a playoff spot officially dashed on Friday night.

The Spartans dropped a 4-3 decision to the Victoria Vikes at the 91原创 Events Centre.

Trailing 4-0, the Spartans rallied to make it a one-goal game before running out of time.

"We had great second and third periods, but ultimately came up short to keep our playoff hopes alive," said Spartans coach Dwayne Lowdermilk.

"The formula, no matter who good or bad certain situations are from refs to a short bench, we have to play 60 minutes, get lots of shots, defend our front of the net and win the small battles on the wall."

The Spartans fell to 4-14-4 on the season and five points back of fifth place Eastern Washington in the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League standings.

The only problem is Trinity Western has just two games remaining, both of which are against first place Victoria.

In Friday's game, the Vikes raced out to a 3-0 lead 11 minutes into the contest. Two of the three goals came on the power play.

Victoria expanded its lead to 4-0 before Trinity Western finally got on the board, thanks to a short-handed goal from Josh Stephenson, making it 4-1 after 40 minutes.

The Spartans again used special teams to score, this time the power play, when Sam Gemmell cut the lead to 4-2 three minutes into the third.

And with two minutes remaining in the game, Doug Gordon made things interesting, cutting the lead to a single goal. But that was as close as the Spartans would get.

The team finishes on the road with games on Friday (March 9) and Saturday (March 10) in Victoria.