CALGARY – After a two and a half hour snow delay, action on Hawkings Field heated up quickly on Friday morning as the UBC Thunderbirds' offence powered its way to a 4-2 victory over the CIS tournament host Calgary Dinos. The win puts UBC at 3-0 for the tournament, guaranteeing the T-Birds a spot in Sunday's CIS championship game.
CIS Player of the Year
Robyn Pendleton scored her second and third goals of the tournament, including a brilliant second half game-winner, as her team exploded for their biggest offensive output since a 4-4 draw with the Dinos nearly a month ago.
“Our structure and passing was better. We took care of the ball better and attacked the way we should, and we got some results,” said UBC head coach Hash Kanjee. “Scoring goals have been an issue this last little while, so it was great to get a few today because that will put us in the right frame of mind going forward.”
The T-Birds move to 3-0 with the win, and can finish no worse than 3-1 after the preliminary round, guaranteeing themselves a spot in Sunday's gold medal match at 1 p.m.
Toronto, Calgary and Alberta all have just one loss so far and could finish 3-1 as well, but all of those teams still play each other later in the preliminary round, meaning only one of them can actually finish with three wins.
The T-Birds didn't mind the extra rest afforded to them by the weather delay, heading into their third match in the last 28 hours. Despite a slow start that saw them fall behind 1-0 in the ninth minute on a breakaway goal by Kaitlyn Longworth, the 'Birds managed to kick their offence into high gear and charge back with four unanswered.
Abigail Raye tipped Pendleton's shot home in the 21
st minute to get UBC on the board, and then
Miranda Mann put the T-Birds in front before half with a low shot from the top of the circle off a penalty corner.
Pendleton then put the 'Birds up 3-1 in the 42
nd minute with a spectacular effort. She was brought down by Dinos goalkeeper Stephanie Petrowitsch as she made her run through defenders in the circle, but still managed to guide the ball home as she fell over the keeper and went to ground.
“That goal was just world class,” Kanjee said.
Pendleton then scored her third of the tournament just three minutes later with a similar run through the circle, this time staying on her feet to navigate around a charging Petrowitsch and net her team's fourth goal.
Serena Lockhart pulled one back for the Dinos in the 48
th minute, capping off a penalty corner with a point blank shot from the side of the net to beat UBC goalkeeper
Bea Francisco.
After the game, Kanjee was impressed with the effort of not just his players, but also the Dinos facility staff and volunteers that helped clear the snow-covered field to make the game possible.
“The fact that there was so much snow, I didn't know how they were going to pull this off and I had visions of us playing on this completely white field. We did have to change the colour of the ball, and they weren't as nice to play with, but Calgary did an amazing job cleaning up the field.”
Next up for UBC is a tilt with fifth-seed Guelph at 12:20 p.m. on Saturday. The Dinos will look to keep their CIS title hopes alive in a key match today against Toronto at 6 p.m. They finish their round-robin schedule on Saturday morning against Alberta.
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