Box Score The Aurora University hockey team faced off against the Braves of Bradley University in an important regional matchup on Friday night.  After breaking the scoreless tie midway through the first with two quick goals, the Spartans held off the Braves for a 7-4 victory.

AU started off slowly and the Braves seemed to have the edge on the Spartans during early play.  The Spartans put an end to that just over seven minutes into the game as Jimmie Perkins found the back of the net after beautiful passing from Bryce Stenstrom and Brad Johnson.
 
The Spartans scored just over a minute later as Ryan Davlantes pulled off a filthy drag move around a Bradley defender to get to the front of the net.  He finished the play by forcing a backhand shot through the five-hole as he was falling to the ice, giving AU a 2-0 lead.
 
The Braves gained their composure and began to generate more scoring chances on the Spartans.  After drawing a penalty late in the period, the Braves capitalized on the powerplay to bring the score to 2-1.
 
The Spartans answered immediately with a Goal from Anthony Rohde under a minute later and the teams would go into the dressing rooms with the scoreboard reading 3-1.
 
Bradley opened up the second period under three minutes in with an unlikely shorthanded goal to cut the deficit to one once again.  The Spartans then notched another goal on the powerplay to bring their lead back to two goals.


About midway through the game, the Braves found the back of the net once again.  This brought the score to 4-3 in favor of Aurora, and was the final time that Bradley would be within one goal of the lead for the remainder of the game as the Spartans tightened up their play.
 
The Spartans went on to outscore the Braves 3-1 with another goal coming from Stenstrom and two from Kevin Salinas.  Kyle Weiner got the well earned victory in net and made 32 saves on 36 shots.

With the win, the Spartans improve to 32-2-1 on the season.  They will take on Bradley once again on Saturday, February 8, 2014 before closing the season out against Purdue on February 21^st and 22^nd.