VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds pushed it to the wire, but couldn't complete their last end zone pass, losing 20-27 to the SFU Clan at Shrum Bowl XXXIII from Thunderbird Stadium on Friday night. The 'Birds were inconsistent, moving the ball in bursts, but suffering long dry spells while Simon Fraser pounded the ball along the ground, eating up 323 yards of turf en route to the win.

With the win, SFU leads the all-time Shrum series 17-15-1.

UBC was down by 14 with three minutes left but a long drive culminated in a Billy Greene touchdown pass to Mitch Shuster to get the T-Birds within a score of tying the game. UBC then sent the Clan three-and-out, and regained possession near their own 30 yard line. The ensuing drive took the Blue and Gold to the SFU 7-yard line with 3.4 seconds on the clock, but the final pass of the game fell incomplete.

For UBC head coach Shawn Olson, the contest was lost long before the final seconds.

"We didn't show up to play," said Olson. "The first quarter was terrible, our warm up was terrible. Our guys don't know how to prepare. And that's on me. When you're 1-4 you need to show up every day and we didn't come out of the gate right today."

The Clan running game scored the game's first two touchdowns, both early in the first quarter. Gabe Ephard and Bo Palmer each ran in one of those scores, as well as racking up 100 plus yard games along the ground.

The Thunderbirds leveled the field with two Billy Pavlopoulos field goals and capitalized on a botched punt attempt by SFU when Greene hit Spencer Betts with a 10-yard touchdown pass on the following drive. Betts was the game's leading receiver with nine catches for 84 yards. Greene had 415 passing yards to go with his 72 rushing yards along the ground.

UBC managed 539 yards of total offence compared to 432 for the Clan and had 11 more first downs than SFU but it wasn't enough. SFU quarterback Ryan Schwartz made big plays when he had to. Seventy four of his 120 passing yards came on two connections with Mathis Baumbach, both on a scoring drive that ended with a 30-yard end zone strike in the third quarter. Schwartz may not have been prolific, but he never turned the ball over and got his team the win.

UBC has now lost four straight games, leaving Olson scratching his head at his talented but self-destructive squad.

"I don't know what it is. Our guys have got to do some soul searching because right now we're not playing like a good team," said a frustrated Olson. "We have way too many mistakes. We show some heart, we do some good things, but we continue to want to get our backs up against the wall. They were pounding us. We couldn't tackle on defence, on offence we couldn't sustain drives, and dropped balls hurt us today. What you get is a game where you're in it at the last minute but maybe you shouldn't have been."

The Thunderbirds' next game is at the University of Alberta on October 16.